Sit Down and Shut Up -- How Bob Schieffer can make this year's final debate interesting. [View All]

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(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot moderator Democratic Underground)

Sit Down and Shut Up
How Bob Schieffer can make this year's final debate interesting.
By Jeff Greenfield
Posted Monday, Oct. 13, 2008, at 4:58 PM ET

When I listen to the complaints that follow just about every presidential debate, I'm reminded of the well-worn joke about the Jewish mother who buys her son two shirts. When he shows up at dinner wearing one, she says: "What's the matter? You didn't like the other one?"

If the debate features "issues" questions, as did the "town-hall meeting" format moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw last week, it's boring and predictable. If the moderators focus on political or "process" questions, as ABC's Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos did during the primary season, it's slammed as trivial. Time limits? Stilted. No time limits? The candidates filibustered.

So widespread is the discontent that some people are getting desperate. In Indiana's highly competitive Ninth Congressional District, Republican Party Chairman Larry Shickles actually proposed last week that the candidates be hooked up to lie detectors for their scheduled Oct. 21 debate. The Republican and Libertarian candidates said yes while the Democratic incumbent had no comment. Thankfully, debate organizers passed.

I confess that I'm drawn to Shickles' idea, not just because it tracks closely with my own notion of slipping sodium pentathol into the candidates' drinking glasses. It's out of frustration: I have my own longstanding yet universally ignored ideas for better debates. (How about a few topics that no spinmeister could possibly anticipate, like a math question: "A train leaves New York heading west at 8 miles an hour; another train leaves Chicago heading east at 75 mph. How much should Amtrak subsidize them?" Or how about a question that would offer genuine insight into a candidate's philosophy: "Do you like the designated hitter rule?")

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