US Presidential Debates

I have been pretty disappointed in this round of US Presidential Debates. At best, they have been really boring. I haven't been able to get through an entire debate yet -- most of the time, I am bailing out halfway through.


For me, most of the problem is that the moderators allow the candidates to recite their talking points instead of answering the actual questions. I don't want to hear the talking points. I've already heard those ad nausea. What I want is for them to answer the questions.

Back in the primaries, there were all of those CNN/YouTube debates. And one of the great things that I saw in those debates was that Anderson Cooper didn't allow the candidates to skate -- when he saw any of them try to weasel out of giving a straight-forward answer, he would stop them and make it clear that they weren't answering the question. For example, recall Sen. Clinton's weasel answer on the issue of American ground troops in Darfur:



If the embedded video doesn't work, use this link [youtube.com]. This is the kind of thing that I want to see more of in future debates. The moderators should stop allowing these bastards from weaseling out of answering the damned questions.