What he said

Scott Ott rocks. It's funny, I was jabbering about this stuff the other day (mostly because Mr. Goldberg harps on it and keeps it fresh in our minds) and then this morning I woke up to this Drudge snippet:

President Bush may skip one of the three debates that have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates... MORE... Bush's negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in Missouri // audience of 'undecided voters' for second debate was to be picked by Gallup. Bush officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans, WASH POST planning to report in new editions, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Developing...

As us Inside Baseball conservatives know, The Elder Bush got in a lot of trouble at the ridiculous "Town Hall" debate when he was up against Clinton. Some hippie started a question with something like "Pretend we're you're children..." and the Elder Bush checked his watch. I would have too. Democrats remember Bush II checking his watch. Republicans remember the question (this one doesn't, not exactly, obviously). I don't think Bush is losing much by avoiding this debate. I don't think it's a question of "were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans", but rather "people have posed as undecided when they actually are partisans." There's an even more depressing third possibility: "People that behave a lot like partisans but don't know enough about either party or the party's candidate to know who to vote for."

Hopefully the mainstream media can make it more clear which candidates believe what. Perhaps even help the whole process along by giving good play to whichever candidate (golly, dunno which!) they would prefer.