Against my better judgement, I’m watching the debate while I work at home. I’ve been reminded why I hate these televised debates, especially with TV personalities as hosts. I was appalled by this exchange that TPM highlights:

10:08 PM … Russert spews the Farrakhan story. Russert: Let me take a few moments to read into the record some of Farrakhan’s most rancid quotes.

10:10 PM … I guess it’s good in some way that this sludge gets thrown around now in advance of the general. But Russert is well beyond the normal bounds of disgusting on this front. As a separate matter, the covert campaign to smear Obama with the Jewish community is a topic of great importance that I’ve been meaning to hit on and haven’t done enough on it yet. At least we know now that Russert’s enlisted with the cause.

10:13 PM … I thought for a moment there that Hillary was going to say something classy. Guess I was wrong.

Now, it’s OK to bring up the story and I wouldn’t necessarily ding that, but the phrasing of Russert’s question was itself meant to implicate that Obama was anti-Semitic. I didn’t like all of Obama’s answer, to be honest, but the attempt to read Farrakhan’s quotes on air was beyond ridiculous. This wasn’t meant to elucidate anything but to make good television, and to paint Obama as a potential anti-Semite. It’s ridiculous. Russert should be ashamed.

Update: While I was writing this up, Josh Marshall received the following quote, which I thought was apropos:

10:33 PM … TPM Reader MF chimes in: “It seems that Russert is asking the questions in the aspect that the candidates are guilty of something. It is really quite odd. And when did it become okay for a moderator to be an antagonist in a Presidential debate. I thought the job of a moderator was to moderate and not antagonize.”

And, oh my f’ing God, now I have to listen to Chris Matthews. OK, I’m going up to my office where there’s no TV. Thankfully.

Update 2: And, we have a winner for best criticism of Tim Russert tonight:

All they’re doing is trotting out quotes to make the candidates either look bad or defensive. How is this a debate? They should call it a justify-why-you’re-not-a-dirty-sucky-liar-bate.

That was my reaction. The “when will you stop beating your spouse” questions were overwhelming and, quite frankly, insulting. I feel dumber for listening to Russert and Williams.

Update 3: Oh, this is better (talking about Russert’s hypotheticals):

“If this happens and then that happens and then some other stuff happens, will you declare war on Canada?”

and Josh Marshall’s summary:

9:44 PM … I’m glad Hillary said this (re: hypotheticals). Russert’s militant simpletonism is getting a bit tiring. What if we partly withdrew and then the Iraqis told us to completely withdraw and then al Qaida was elected president and then they allied with North Korea, do you have a policy ready for that!?!?!?!

Man, this debate was awful… because of the moderators. I really thought both candidates had good moments and bad, and I wish they were able to talk about issues rather than stupid gotcha crap.

Update 4: Ok, final thought. This debate is a microcosm of why political discourse in this country sucks. It’s not because of too much partisanship. It’s because we have idiots like Russert and Matthews on the air who make the debate about them. I did catch a bit of Matthews post-debate and he was congratulating Russert on reeling in the big marlin (getting Clinton to say she would take back the AUMF vote in 2002), with Russert looking proud (until Matthews, predictably, took it too far).

Message to Tim Russert and Chris Matthews: This isn’t about you. We don’t care what you accomplish during the debate because you’re not going to be President.

If I had to summarize the left critique of the media, especially from folks like Atrios and that crowd, it’s that these pundits care more about their own egos than they do about the country they’re supposed to be reporting on. It was on painful display tonight with Russert. Go fishing if you want to reel in a marlin and get off of my TV.

Update 5: OK, I lied. One more update on this issue. This post on TPM just hit my aggregator, and they have the video. I’ll quote the whole thing from Josh Marshall. While I wasn’t fond of Obama’s initial answer about having strong support among Jews, I really loved the second half of it. Inter-minority group racism is often stronger and less-apologized for than majority/minority racism. I’ve witnessed it amongst some in the Indian-American community, sadly, and what Obama says is key. Here’s Marshall’s post:

I discussed this in the live debate blog. But I think it’s worth going back and watching Russert’s run of shame here. I would say it was borderline to bring up the issue of Farrakhan at all. But perhaps since it’s getting some media play you bring it up just for the record, for Obama to address.

That’s not what Russert did. He launches into it, gets into a parsing issue over word choices, then tries to find reasons to read into the record some of Farrakhan’s vilest quotes after Obama has just said he denounces all of them. Then he launches into a bizarre series of logical fallacies that had Obama needing to assure Jews that he didn’t believe that Farrakhan “epitomizes greatness”.

As a Jew and perhaps more importantly simply as a sentient being I found it disgusting. It was a nationwide, televised, MSM version of one of those noxious Obama smear emails.

And the video, judge for yourself:

While Hillary Clinton’s attempt to score points on this one was less than honorable, Russert should be shunned for the ridiculous nature of the question.