Jeez. Today’s debate was complete crap. There were very few zingers and the moderation by Ted Koppel was awful. Rather than give you the standard “greatest hits” treatment that I usually do, I’m just going to reprint the two most memorable moments of the debate :

KUCINICH: But let me say, Ted, let me say — let me say that some of the best talent in American politics is on this stage right now. And with all due respect to you, Ted Koppel, who I’ve admired over the years greatly…

KOPPEL: There’s a zinger coming now, isn’t there?

KUCINICH: Yes. To begin this kind of a forum with a question about an endorsement, no matter by who, I think actually trivializes the issues that are before us. For example, at this moment there are 130,000 troops in Iraq. I mean, I would like to hear you ask during this event what’s the plan for getting out. This war is not over. I have a plan, which is on my Web site at kucinich.us, to get the United States out of Iraq. I want to talk about that tonight, and I hope we have a substantive discussion tonight and that we’re not going to spend the night talking about endorsements.
. . .
DEAN: You know, I just did something that George Bush’s father did, I looked at my watch during the debate. We have about 12 minutes left. We’ve spent almost all our time on Iraq. Now, Iraq and national security are important, but it’s not what this debate’s about.
. . .
What this election is about is taking back this country for ordinary people. And we can argue all we want about Iraq but average people can’t send their kids to college. Average people have health-care payments every month that are more than their house payments.
. . .
So that we do something for small businesses in this country that create 70 percent of the jobs in America and keep their jobs in their community.

What this election is about — yes, national security is important, but I don’t think it’s an hour and a quarter out of an hour and a half debate.

When I was watching the C-Span stream of the debate, every candidate that was interviewed afterward had the same complaints. It seemed like the only things Koppel wanted to talk about was Gore and Iraq. What a bore…