In his online chat today, Howard Kurtz rebuts the idea that last week's Democratic debate on ABC was trivial beyond belief:

What, exactly, did George Stephanopoulos do at the Philadelphia debate last week that was so wrong? Was it that he and Charlie Gibson asked impertinent, "gotcha" questions at the expense of "the issues"? Or was it that he asked questions that made the Democratic candidates uncomfortable and possibly less appealing to voters?