ABC Debate Hosts Out of Touch and Off Base

Frank Rich wrote in today's NY Times about the awful ABC News debate last week, in which the hosts ignored the important issues and focused, between incessant commercial breaks, on asking trivial and gossipy questions trying to trap the democratic candidates instead of educating the public about their positions.

"The most revealing moment in Wednesday’s debate was a striking example of this media-populace disconnect. In Mr. Gibson’s only passionate query of the night, he tried to strong-arm both Democrats into forgoing any increases in the capital gains tax. The capital gains tax! That’s just the priority Americans are focusing on as they lose their houses and jobs, and as gas prices reach $4 a gallon (a subject that merited only a brief mention, in a lightning round of final questions).

And this in a debate that took place on the same day we learned that the top 50 hedge fund managers made a total of $29 billion in 2007, some of them by betting against the mortgage market.

At least Mr. Gibson is consistent. In the ABC debate in January, he upbraided Mrs. Clinton by suggesting that a typical New Hampshire “family of two professors” with a joint income “in the $200,000 category” would be unjustly penalized by her plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. He seemed oblivious not merely to typical academic salaries but to the fact that his hypothetical household would be among America’s wealthiest (only 3.4 percent earn more)."