DEBATE ETIQUETTE….Jack O’Toole comments on yesterday’s Democratic debate:
Unlike many (most?) bloggers, I’m not much of a press basher, but Judy Woodruff’s performance at last night’s Democratic debate was, to put it mildly, unfortunate.
Over and over she interrupted the candidates as they offered their negative assessments of the current administration with the admonition that the voters needed to know where they differed with each other, not President Bush. Did it really never occur to Ms. Woodruff that one of the most important differences among the candidates is how they go about critiquing the man one of them will be running against next year?
I already commented about this at Jack’s site, but I’m curious what other people think about this.
I watched about five minutes of the debate, and in that short time I actually found Woodruff somewhat refreshing. Instead of letting the candidates wander off into their usual campaign speeches, she interrupted and forced them to actually address the questions she was asking.
Now, I admit that this might have gotten annoying for a full 90 minutes, which is why I’m curious to know what other people who watched the whole debate thought of this. Personally, I’ve always found campaign debates pretty uninteresting because the candidates simply ignore the questions and fire off their usual tiresome applause lines. Maybe Woodruff strayed too far in the other direction, but surely there’s a happy medium somewhere?
