ABC goes from laurel to dart

In the print-only "Darts and Laurels" feature of Columbia Journalism Review for March/April, there's a "laurel to Charlie Gibson and ABC for hosting the best debates of the nominating season -- so far." Well, last night, only hours after I posted the complaint "Journalism? Public service? The networks aren't even trying," it seems Gibson and company threw it all away.

I'm judging, however, from the blogospheric uproar today. I honestly did intend to watch the Clinton-Obama debate, but apparently my eyelids closed seconds after I sat down. I think the reason was largely residual jetlag, but perhaps some part of my brain has decided that I've heard enough bickering already.

Comments

If there was substance to the debate, I must have missed it. At least half of the questions rehashed the past few weeks of gaffes and gotchas, the non-issues that have dominated most of the coverage between the last set of primaries and now.

It probably didn't help my opinion of the moderators that I spent part of yesterday watching Stephanopoulos do the same sort of pointless needling and hair-splitting with Stephen Hadley over whether the president would attend the Olympics, never seeming to notice that Hadley repeatedly mistook Tibet for Nepal.

Maybe we've run out of issues to debate, but I doubt it. Last I checked, there's still a war going on, still a health care system in disarray, still a complicated relationship with China to sort out. I'd really like to know more about what the candidates plan to do if elected. I really don't think we can know to much about real issues, but campaign sound bites about who can shoot a deer or hang with white people aren't real issues.