(Orginally published in Greater Democracy)

In his article on the Presidential debates, Jonathan Alter talks about ‘The Danger of Distractions’. He points out “there's a second reason Bush wants to spend valuable time debating debates. It runs down the clock on discussion of important stuff, like his record in office.”

This fits nicely with my comments Tuesday about who the Republicans repeated try to run down the clock.

Meanwhile, the MediaChannel writes, “the major networks are still treating the American public to a steady diet of horse race, campaign mudslinging and character assassination, leaving very little airtime for substantive coverage of the issues Americans say they care about most: the economy, education, healthcare and national security/the war against terror.”

Even debates can get mired in campaign mudslinging and character assassination, but I remain a big fan of debates, and I am pretty tired at the Republican constant efforts to distract the populous. So, I have a modest proposal. If Bush can’t stop equivocating about debating, then the leading news source of the current election cycle, Comedy Central needs to handle the debates themselves. Either, they need to show repeats of the famous Bush vs. Bush debate, or they should have Kerry debate a Bush stand-in. I would suggest Will Ferrell.