Thursday, April 17, 2008

Debate So Bad No One Can Play It

Debate Screwed Up So Bad No One Can Play It

There's an old baseball story, probably apocryphal, variously attributed to Casey Stengel, Leo Durocher, Frankie Frisch, or some other manager. Player makes a couple errors in a row. Manager pulls the guy, says "I'll play it myself," promptly makes an error. Punchline: "You screwed up third base so bad no one can play it."

That was last night's debate. I'm dumbfounded to the point of inarticulate. Charles Gibson and George Snuffleuppagus were so stupid that no one can say anything intelligent. The first non-cable, broadcast network, prime time debate of the season, with the largest potential audience, and they wasted the first full half of the debate entirely on tabloid gotcha. The candidates didn't sink to ABC's level as much as they got mired in it.

The latest worst. debate. ever. -- but they were saying that back in December about the Des Moines Register debate, too, for exactly the opposite reasons.

Hey, ABC "News" -- can I have those two hours of my life back?

No comments: