"Debate round-up" or "Peter Jenning rolls in his grave"

Leave it to ABC News to ask the candidates about flag lapel pins, The Weather Underground and other such nonsense. Legitimate issues weren't addressed until well into the second half, by which any sane voter was probably gone.

As Daily Kos' MissLaura put it:

It took 52 minutes to get to a question about Iraq. Took 64 minutes to the economy, and then in John McCain's terms.

These are the top two issues cited in poll after poll, but ABC doesn't think they're important enough to ask the presidential candidates on, or will let a Republican frame the debate. It's flat shameful.

Another Kos regular, DHinMI complied a list of issues the moderators didn't bother to bring up, including health care, trade, torture, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Editor and Publisher's Greg Mitchell:

In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall:

There are issues like health care, and whose proposal will achieve universal coverage; some question about the credit crisis; perhaps some question about Iraq that presupposed that getting out is a necessary objective -- like, noting ways that each has hedged on their promises to leave Iraq, rather than a question, the subtext of which was 'what will you do when the serious people tell you we shouldn't leave'; something executive power -- a legitimate questions since presidents are seldom willing to renounce powers grasped by predecessors; the environment; perhaps, what will these candidates actually do -- concretely -- to crack down on executive branch corruption since Democrats have made such political hay of the issue at President's Bush's expense; perhaps a single question on the environment?

Don't have a link yet, but Keith Olbermann called it "a travesty."

Cartoonist and blogger Dan Perkins a.k.a. Tom Tomorrow:

I don’t think that debate could have been any more stupid. Shame on ABC for taking all their cues from Sean Hannity, and shame on Hillary Clinton for eagerly playing along, particularly with the Ayers smear.

He's not far off. Stephanopolous was a guest on Hannity's show this week. I didn't hear the segment, but I did catch the promo to it, in which Hannity (who probably was the chief advocate for the Swift Boat Vets in '04) said he was going to suggest questions for Stephanopolous during the following interview. Apparently, George took his suggestions to heart.

If they were going to focus on campaign flaps, they could have thrown a question to Hillary on the Columbian trade deal. God forbid they should ask something that actually has any effect on people's lives.

The entire thing was an embarrassment and makes Nader's piece yesterday even more timely. The Republican equivalent would have been for McCain and Giuliani to have been questioned for 45+ minutes about their affairs (real in Rudy's case and alleged in McCain's).

It's no wonder Charlie Gibson got heckled afterwards.

It's gotten so bad that ABC had to take down their feedback page after the comments went overwhelmingly negative. Crooks and Liars captured them and has video excerpts of the whole sad affair here.

Photo: Members of the audience watch a Democratic presidential debate between Democratic presidential hopefuls, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., at the National Constitution Center, Wednesday, April 16, 2008, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)