ABC'S DEBATE STINKS, ASKS INSIGNIFICANT QUESTIONS, WASTES OPPORTUNITY TO ASK PRESSING ISSUES

How about that awful boring waste of a debate last night by ABC? Talk about dull! And what were George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson thinking by asking all those trivial unimportant questions?

Instead of asking the candidates about the pressing questions of the hour, such as Bush's use of torture, or Guantanamo trials, or Bush's disastrous foreign policy, or the worsening Israeli-Palestinian quagmire, it seemed that all Gibson and Stephanopoulos could muster were "gotcha" questions, such as the meaning of Barach's "bitter" phrase or his association with Jeremiah Wright or participation on a board with a guy from the Weathermen of years past.

The ABC debate directed by Gibson and Stephanopoulos was not only a waste of time. It demeaned the candidates. It dredged up the worst practices of main street media, emphasizing the shallow and superficial, and neglecting the really important questions, just like what happened in the 2000 presidential elections where media personnel loved George W. Bush but hated Al Gore solely on the basis of who would make the best drinking companion.