Gosh, Who Knew that a Couple Debate Moderators Doing Their Jobs Would Cause So Much Trouble!

I decided last night that I’d much rather watch a repeat of Ghost Hunters than subject myself to the ten squidillionth Democratic debate. Oof, did that turn out to be a bad decision. Ghost Hunters was a bust and the debate ended up being the most entertaining in many, many months. The moderators, Charlie Gibson and George Snuffelupagus, were on point with a ton of uncomfortable questions about whether the candidates have been lying through their teeth about various personal experiences and whether the candidates are good buddies with unrepentant killers, racists, and anti-Semites.

Had they said they were going to do more than play kissyface with the Democratic Duo I wouldn’t have watched the TAPS guys telling yet another hapless homeowner that having a fuse box last wired in the 1920s is more likely the cause of their uneasy feelings than a ghost. Stupid networks.

So, after reading a couple liveblogs and after-action reports, the clear winner of last night’s debate wasn’t a Democrat. It wasn’t Gibson or Stephtacoccus either. The winner was anyone who decided to tune in and watch an extremely entertaining depantsing of two preening politicians who were long overdue for a good public exam.

The leftopshere spent the night soaking torches in pitch and sharpening their pointy farm implements for the march on the ABC castle later today. I haven’t read hyperbole like this since the last Chinese government statement about the vicious gramma-beating brute who calls himself the Dalai Lama. Man it must really sting when the reliably progressive wingmen you’ve known our entire adult life decides, for one night, to – shock of shocks – do their jobs. It must be like having a beloved pet suddenly and without warning bark once sharply at you. How could Ol’ Phydeaux be mean to me for that incredibly small amount of time! Why doesn’t he love me? *sob* Now I must take him behind the barn and shoot him because obviously he’s flawed if he barked at me one whole time! *sniffle*

Speaking of the MSM, it looks like Gibson and Steffascope weren’t exactly the darlings of their comrades either. Greg Sargent huffed and puffed like the Big Bad Asthmatic Wolf and some schmuck named Will Bunch who has conned a big newspaper into paying him for a column decided to put on his most pretentious airs and scold Charlie Gibson for having the temerity to treat Clinton and Obama like they were garden-variety Republicans. Joe Klein and Tom Shales clucked and tsked with hearts heavy with sorrow and Michael Grunwald served up a morning dish of barely warm lefty scratchings that might have tasted better in the heat of last night’s anger but today just look like your everyday routine MSM cluelessness. I predict much more handwringing from the likes of Wolf Blitzer and the rest of the TV Talking Heads and many pledges to do much better next time, perhaps even by egging John McCain on national television or drawing moustaches on his campaign posters.

Robert McCain, who didn’t watch the debate either, also took a tour of the blogosphere this morning and is chuckling over the breast-beating. He has a special love in his heart for Greg Mitchell, Objective Journalist Extraordinaire. I must excerpt.

In Greg Mitchell’s (wet) dream debate, Charlie Gibson would ask, “Senator Obama, please tell us how you plan to reverse the horrendous damage that the criminal Bush regime has done to the Constitution?” And then Obama would give a two-minute lecture about the Fourth Amendment and why Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should have been read the Miranda warning and given a pro-bono lawyer from the ACLU.

Instead, Obama has to answer a question about why he’s buddy-buddy with Weather Underground terrorist mastermind Billy Ayers, and Mitchell condemns this as “trivial.”

Oh, did I mention that Greg Mitchell is — I kid you not — the editor of Editor & Publisher, the leading professional journal of professional journalism?

Of course Mitchell thinks it’s trivial, Robert. He sure as heck didn’t spend the late 1960s inveighing against the likes of Ayers and his fellow radicals and killers. More likely, he was writing purple prose about The Truth of Vietnam in some college newspaper and bagging the occasional ditzy coed who was impressed by his rakish beret and fatigue jacket with the peace pin on the lapel. Back in the day, the Weathermen were the dangerous, sexy knights that j-students like Mitchell wanted to be. I suspect, though, that his support ended at getting his hands wet with homemade explosive. Consider him a Radical Chickenhawk, in the parlance of the left.

It can’t be much of a surprise that when an old-school progressive like Barack Obama comes along, Greg Mitchell and his ilk are going to form a flying wedge right in front of him and escort him down the field.

(most links via memeorandum)