Well, maybe debates don’t matter that much. These days, they generally seem like artificial constructs where the supposed debaters may or may not actually answer the posed questions, depending on their mood, the time of day, the phase of the moon, or who knows. But somehow, during this weekend, I spent far too many hours on YouTube looking at old US presidential debate clips. And you know what I found? Some moments were incredibly telling.

For instance, this moment in the 1992 debate that showed so clearly how Clinton might have seemed like such a beacon of light. I guess maybe I could mention the connection between this nice Dukakis moment and why Democrats have been generally viewed as soft on crime, whatever that means. But what I really want to ask is, why don’t we see questions like that at the debates anymore? It’d definitely be more interesting than, “What do you think about Israel?”