The normally insightful David Brooks of the NYT is defending many of the preposterous questions in the ABC debate where substance did not just take a back seat to prurient stupidity, it was almost totally eclipsed by nonsense questions and trivial commentary.
Brooks is certainly right that people have a right to know more about Obama, but this was not by any means the way to understand a candidate.
Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolis are better than this - way better - so I'm not clear why they decided to replace questions of substance with lapel pins, guilt by association, and Bosnian sniper silliness.
