I feel for Dodd, who kinda seems to be playing the Bob Graham role this cycle.  (Good Dem, lots of experience, can't get any traction.)  When you're a nobody, you simply have no choice but to take any debate opportunity you can get.  At least he didn't call all the other Dems cowards for ditching Fox the way Kucinich did.

Obviously there are a lot of ways that a long-shot candidate can show some loyalty to the netroots agenda, and it's disappointing when they miss an opportunity.  I think the topic of debates is a special exception that I have to grant, given the difficulty these candidates face in getting any air time whatsoever.

I do think Dodd wasn't quite sure what he wanted to establish with the Daily Show audience and so it wasn't a particularly productive appearance for him overall.

Kucinich is an idiot.

I'm disappointed that Dodd doesn't get it. He could have learned a lot last year, he had a front row seat. But either he is too stuck in his ways or can't read the writing on the wall -- regardless I'm glad he won't be the nominee.

The real reason Dodd and Kucinich take this position is because they're mired in the single digits, poll-wise. They need the exposure a debate -- any debate -- would bring.

Men of principle,  don't 'cha know.

Maher loves to talk a big game and tries to tell Democrats to grow balls, then when they do (by pulling out of FoxNews debate), he motherfucks them some more.

This is a man who is so afraid of being known as a Democrat, that he constantly lets people know he's a libertarian.  And what's a libertarian, anyway?  A libertarian is a Republican asshole who likes to smoke pot and not pay any taxes.  

Matt, where does this come from?  If you mean the opposite of liberal wishy-washy "geniality" (love me love me I'm a liberal), well I can think of a number of other modifiers like clear, forceful, principled, no-bullshit, over-it,sink-or-swim, take-no-prisoners and those eternal media favorite, tough/macho/frontier-manly.  Words are important, and frankly bitterly to me is a waspish old queen railing against, well, everything as in every gay film character in through the '50s.

As for Maher (Ann Coulter's good buddy), jgarcia pretty much nails it.

The problem with Kucinich and Dodd taking positions like this is that it undermines the idea that Fox is a partisan network.  It may be good for Kucinich and Dodd, but it's bad for the movement.

I saw the Dodd Daily Show appearance and wasn't impressed.  Aside from the Fox comment, he just wasn't interesting, engaging, or funny.  Very bland.

  Hello? Is there anyone out there? CNN and MSNBC are also Republican propaganda machines. Not just Fox. All the major news channels are Republican controlled. Its time to move on.

Oh, he understood the question.  Dodd and Kucinich are just desperate for some face time.  They know they won't be targeted, because they're not taken seriously as candidates.

I posted a blog on this subject here recently, analyzing one of the last debates Fox hosted.  Looking at the leading candidates, they gave Lieberman a free pass, just minor slaps to Kerry and Edwards, while totally trashing Dean and Clark with questions along the lines of "When did you stop beating your wife?"

Do you ever wonder if the reason Kerry and Edwards rose to the top was because the neocon media manipulated that occurrence?

I do.