There's been a lot of complaints over the ABC's moderators in the recent Pennsylvanian presidential debate, as well as some other moderators in other debates. But I did not get a particularily bad impression from the debate, even though I really don't tolerate nonsense and unfair attacks. It's true, a lot of the questions were uncomfortable, either about alleged "scandals" (gaffes), or about real issues, but forcing the candidates into a Yes/No type of answers (and we all know there are no simple answers to complex issues). But still, I didn't find the debate particularly unfair, and seeing all these complaints (some of them very harsh), I asked myself: why didn't it bother me more? Here's what I came up with.

The thing is, I think, that people naturally wish that topics which can potentially hurt their favorite candidate would be mentioned as little as possible. Of course, if you like a candidate, you don't want them get hurt. So if someone comes up with such a topic, people often see it as nothing but an unfair attack on their candidate. But I don't see these "attacks" during debates as attacks at all, but rather as an opportunity to respond and to explain.

These topics are bound to come up one way or another. Even if moderators were compassionate enough not to bring them up, somebody else would. But if they talk about it in a debate, I believe it's actually good for the candidates. A lot of these "attacks" are really non-issues or at least highly exaggerated, and it doesn't take a lot from a candidate to respectfully explain them and put them away. As we could see from the viewers' barometer chart, there was mainly positive response to both candidates' answers, even when the questions were uncomfortable. And the next time people hear these same topics in real attacks they will simply say "Yes, we've heard this before, and it's such an issue as they're trying to make it seem."

Compare that to the same kind of attack appearing as a story in a hostile talk show, where a hostile moderator hosts hostile pundits and says something like "Do you think this latest SCANDAL will hurt the candidate?" and they respond "Oh, absolutely, this is something voters definitely aren't going to forget..." etc. And then they all talk about how huge a scandal this is for days before the y give the candidate a chance to respond in a few minutes, after which they conclude "Yeah, as expected he/she's making excuses and relativizing." And then they beat it to death for a couple more days.

So really, I think the candidates can only wish to be "attacked" during debates as much as possible and as early as possible, so they can put the nonsense to rest long enough before an election. As most of these attacks are really non-issues, they can only have a serious impact if they appear just days before an election. Hopefully all of them will have been used long enough before the general election, so that people will ultimately vote based on what's really important and not some blown up or even made up stories. But in case a scandalous story does appear during the last days before the general (definitely possible), people should know that it can not be anything other than a swiftboat attempt and should not fall for it.