A great moment for political journalism.....NOT

The hecklers at the end of last night's Democratic Presidential debate on ABC kind of summed up my opinion of the event.


For an elaboration, though, here is the comment I left on ABC's debate wrap-up website. Mine is one of almost 17,000 comments (and probably still counting) on the site:

This was the worst excuse for a presidential debate that I've ever seen. There was no "debate" to it at all. A debate is supposed to be viewpoint vs. viewpoint between two or more competing candidates. All this was was a question/answer session for moderator vs. candidate(s). WHERE WAS THE DEBATE ON THE ISSUES?!? This was a TOTAL disservice to the voters of Pennsylvania and the other upcoming primaries, and it was an embarrassment to the entire process -- not to mention to journalism itself. If I wanted to hear questions such as the ones that were posed by Stephanopolous and Gibson, I would tune into the Sunday morning pundit shows or "Fox & Friends"--- THIS WAS NOT THE RIGHT FORUM. This is the opportunity for voters to hear where the candidates stand on issues such as Iraq and other foreign policy concerns, the economy/jobs/housing market, the Yoo torture memos and executive privilege, education and their plans to correct the system, healthcare, etc!! Where were the issues?!?!?! If you want to know why people in PA and the rest of the country are "bitter," it's because you have allowed politics to turn into a "game" rather than its real purpose -- a system that supports the people of this country. I hope you look back at this debate and feel ashamed of the the end product.

I know the phone lines and email inboxes at ABC have been flooded all day as well. If anyone feels like calling and letting ABC know how he/she feels about the lack of substantive journalism in last night's debate, here's the number for the ABC Switchboard: 212-456-7777.
(Thanks, Atrios )