The Debate

DarwinCatholic, posting at American Catholic has some interesting ideas to spice up the debate. As I wrote previously, that last one was pretty boring to MommaLlama and I. We may not even watch the last one. We probably will start it, but no promises to stay awake.

Anyway, I was thinking, I don't see the point of these "secret" unknown questions. Why not give the campaigns their questions beforehand so they can prepare well? I know that I would rather not be judged on my ad libbing. It's not like we don't allow real presidents in real situations to consult their advisors. Encyclopedic knowledge of every topic under the sun is not that important to me. Not that I want them memorizing and delivering speeches, there can be some follow-up questions and interaction from the moderator or audience. But the only topic that they should truly have to extemporize on would be their general political philosophies. They should be able to explain themselves and their principles without doing a lot of homework.

But what do we gain when they try to trip up Sarah Palin by mentioning some obscure foreign leader who she is not an expert on, or even tricking Joe Biden into saying something stupid (as much fun as that can be)? It's just fodder for SNL. We learn nothing from it.