But the tone got set somewhat by Clinton who did the silly attack on Obama’s literature. She went after character so that had to be part of the questioning I guess. I still really believe it was the best debate of the year. So yeah, I guess we differ!

I’m going to push back here a bit – I agree about new territory and that the moderators needed to keep us from listening to 90 mins of the same five sentences.

HOWEVER, please think about this and why some of us feel that the moderators are culpable for the very situation they then had to control:

they set the whole thing up. They KNOW the news. They KNOW what’s in the blogs and the rumor mills and on the ground.

They knew EXACTLY what they were doing – it’s like revving up dogs at a dog fight or prepping the bulls for the bullfight. Come on.

And so – if they wanted to have a different kind of debate, they could have – around any issue.

So – they are not faultless at all, imo.

What do you think about that view?

But what’s really interesting is what you all didn’t get to see – this total Abbott and Costello thing that Brian Williams and Russert did before the show began. It’s like Jekyll and Hyde for Russert – very, very odd transformation. That’s not to say that many news people aren’t like that – I think I’m a bit like that – different when I’m doing my journalism thing than even when I’m blogging or in person.

But with Russert, the transformation was really creepy, to be honest.

Well, I really really did NOT like Russert’s style. But part of what I’m learning in these days after the debate, in talking to others, esp. those who watched it at home is that being in the audience, you really really hear things differently. I’ll be writing more about that in a long review post.

Thanks very much Carole.

And I’m still undecided.

I watched the debate and was more disappointed with Russert and Williams as moderators than anything that the candidates had to say. There were so many important issues they could have hit upon instead of playing the same old sort of “gotcha” type journalism that Russert has perfected. I hope the public will wake up some day and decide we should not let the press be choosing our elected officials for us. The press, with the exception of a few outstanding organizations like McClatchy and Christian Science Monitor, have failed this country by choosing to ignore their role to inform the citizens and act as a check against the abuse of power of the government.