Who lost the debate?

By Libby

When I realized that Tim Russert was going to moderate the debate last night, I decided not to watch it. What's the point? Obviously it was going to be all about Tim looking to score some points as a clueless gasbag "hard hitting" journalist. On quick review of the reactions, I see the general consensus is that it was a draw. The real losers are the voters who depend on these farcical encounters for information on the issues. Digby nails it.

Judging by their silly questions tonight, Russert and Williams obviously know nothing about health care policy, Iraq, Islamic terrorism, economics, global trade or any other subject that requires more than five minutes study to come up with some gotcha question or a stupid Jack Bauer fantasy. It's embarrassing.

These people guide the way citizens perceive politics even if the citizens don't know it. It's hard for me to see how anything can truly change until this is dealt with.

I agree wholeheartedly. If we could somehow get rid of Russert and Chris Matthews the intelligence level of our political discourse would rise by about a million percent.