Isn’t that a large part of the purpose of GD, already? I’m always baffled when someone says we should have a forum for political discussions, because it looks to me like we already do.
If you wanted to really clean up GD, you could make an “American Politics” forum, because quite honestly most of the partisan sniping doesn’t make for very “Great” “Debates”.
Color me surprised, but I think it’s not a bad idea either.
In an ideal world, Great Debates could indeed be about debating the great questions of our time. But most of the political stuff that’s in there doesn’t even rise to the ‘mediocre, predictable, and boring questions of our time’.
So I wouldn’t mind a forum that pulled from ‘Today’s Headlines!’.
In fact, that’s what I’d suggest it be named: Today’s Headlines! or somesuch.
I think it would be a great idea. C K Dexter Haven, I think the reason there won’t be many examples to pull from the existing forums is because there is currently no place to post them. I frequently read things that I would like to discuss but don’t because they just don’t seem to fit our current forums.
On the other hand, “Bush is an idiot” isn’t any more at home with “Grim reaper kitty” than it is with “Does God exist?”. If we did have a current events forum, pretty soon, folks would be complaining that American politics is crowding out all the threads about omenic cats.
Same thing here … and I’m American, too. Even if it doesn’t relate to the US, I fear seeing the same “turn everything into an anti-America thread” phenomenon happen here as it does on Metafilter.
Assuming this forum came to exist, would it become home to recreational outrage posts from the BBQ Pit? Assuming they weren’t so outraged that they had to be in the pit for swearing purposes?
I think a “Ripped from the Headlines” forum would be a good idea. For one small example, it could be used for death announcements for the non-Cafe-Society types. (I’d argue, for instance, that Tammy Faye wasn’t entirely a CS type.)
As to whether or not such a forum would be redundant to GD: There are some people, myself among them, who never set foot in GD, because my impression is that it’s all the frothing ideologues going after each other. I don’t want to argue about God or Dubya – but occasionally something comes up in the news that I’d like to get some Doper commentary on.
What about the “Bush is the anti-christ” threads? Would they go in there, too?
But isn’t that what IMHO is for? Discussing things you’d like feedback on? If the discussion involves obscenity, take it to the pit, if it involves asking for objective and/or factual information, take it to GQ. GD is for lengthy debates on big issues. MPSIMS is when you just want to share things about you or your life. CS is for discussion of arts and entertainment (and sports, kind of). Pretty easy, no?
IMHO tends to be more (for lack of a better word) personal questions – should I call this girl, what’s it like to do X job, which type of gadget Y should I get, etc. I guess you could do “what’s your take on Tammy Faye and her death” there, but it’s not the standard usage.
But what about those Great Debate people who would want to comment on your news item, but are too snooty to go into the new forum? What are they supposed to do if they want to talk to you?
“The Lowells speak only to Cabots, the Cabots only to God.”
If they want to talk to us, then they can just go through the Cabots.
Take a number? 
I think the SDMB has reached the peak of perfection, and any possible change could only be for the worse.
The feeling of the moderators at this point, with the acquisition of the READER, is that we should hold off on changes until we have a better idea of what’s what and what the future holds.
Peak sounds inadequate. Pinnacle? Acme?
We could call it the BrainGlutton forum.
Only if it’s called “Ripped from the Headlines (Bonk Bonggk).”
In its present less-than-perfect state it’s more like the acne.