Debate? How about 'sleep aid'?

Inter Lake editorial

There was a running theme in commentary following Tuesday night's presidential debate: "Boring" and "snoozer" were among the descriptions. The online publication, Politico, bluntly called it "the worst debate ever."

And how can that be? This is widely billed as the most important presidential election in memory, with the nation facing a wide range of domestic and international challenges. This was supposed to be a dynamic "town hall" debate, but it wasn't.

It was a formatted forum that provided little in the way of back-and-forths between the candidates, or exchanges between them and the citizens in the audience, who were supposed to be asking most of the questions, rather than moderator Tom Brokaw.

The Politico analysis puts much of the blame on the national presidential debate commission. "The commission allowed the cautious handlers of the presidential campaigns to negotiate a format designed to limit improvisation, intellectual engagement and truth-telling."

Sen. John McCain is known to excel in town-hall meetings, but he didn't in this case largely because there was a heavy reliance on familiar "talking points" rather than open challenges and rebuttals to statements made by either candidate.

Exhibit A: "Nailing down Sen. Obama's tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to a wall," McCain said. "He wants to raise taxes. My friends, the last president to raise taxes during tough economic times was Herbert Hoover."

Really? Rather than using the rehearsed Jell-O line, McCain could have squarely challenged Sen. Barack Obama's firm campaign proposal to raise capital gains taxes in a struggling economy where businesses, large and small, will be scrambling for capital. He could have specifically challenged other elements in Obama's tax plan, rather than just making the simple claim that Obama "wants to raise taxes."

Obama coolly let the charge slide away, and countered with a claim that McCain wants to give corporate bosses huge tax cuts. And that's not the case - McCain simply doesn't want to raise taxes on anybody and he wants to expand the child tax credit - but McCain didn't bother responding either.

Exhibit B: "As president of the United States," McCain announced, "I would order the secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes - at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those - be able to make those payments and stay in their homes."

That was supposed to be a big bomb to drop, a new proposal that would please many voters and irk others, but it failed to detonate because McCain declined to elaborate and Obama didn't bother to challenge him on it.

Can't these two mix it up a little better than that, especially McCain? He needed a surge in Tuesday's debate, and it didn't happen.