In part to distract myself from just how lame the ABC "debate" was, I typed up my stream-of-consciousness notes as it went along. But I bounced them off some friends and family before posting because I thought I might have gotten too heated. (They said nope.) As a former journalist (and a citizen), I was not only disgusted -- I was embarrassed for Gibson and Stephanopoulos. I'd like to think that I would have been similarly disgusted if they had wasted the first hour or so aiming similarly issue-free questions at Sen. Clinton.
My notes are below, but first, President Andrew Sheppard, from 1995 (the link also has video):
We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. ... He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism.