Pushing Rope: ABC News Presidential Debate

I am watching the replay of the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton debate on the C-SPAN website. All I can say is what a shitty series of questions asked by Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. This is all questions about Bosnia sniper and the Rev. Wright. It makes for bad gotcha journalism and boring television.

Instead of questions about the economy, Charles Gibson asks Obama why he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin. The debate was devoid of policy.

Asked to defend the fact that policy didn't come up for the first 40 or so minutes of the debate, Stephanopoulos said:

"We decided to focus at the top on the issues that had been at the center of the debate since the last debate. Everything we brought up in that front section had not come up since the last debate. And they all focused on the same theme -- which candidate would be a stronger Democratic candidate in Novembber."

"This is the core question for the campaigns, and a lot of Democratic voters right now. That's why we decided to lead with it."

Update: Columnist Rick Horowitz lampoons the dabate.

Tom Schaller wished that Hillary didn't follow her "lesser political instincts."

Update: Sean Hannity is feeding Stephanopoulos questions.

HANNITY: There are two questions that I don’t think anybody has asked Barack Obama, and I don’t know if this is going to be on your list tomorrow. One is – the only time he’s ever been asked about his association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground who on 9/11 of all days in the New York Times was saying “I don’t regret setting bombs. I don’t think we did enough.” When asked about it by the Politico, David Axelrod said that they have a friendly relationship, and that they had done a number of speeches together and that they sat on a board together. Is that a question you might ask?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I’m taking notes right now.

Here are lowlights of the debate.