I had avoided watching political debates this cycle mostly because I hate the canned rhetoric and lack of real debate. The rules are so strictly prepared by the candidates, the debates are in my cynical opinion, a badly scripted reality show. But I caved Tuesday and watched the debate on MSNBC.

While the debated seemed one notch above reality TV (a game show maybe), I found both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama engaging. It was the moderating journalists that looked like idiots.

NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams and Meet the Press host Tim Russert went back and forth in a subtle battle for who could ask the least relevant question.

Williams ask Obama about his ranking in the National Journal as the most liberal senator saying “How can you run with a more liberal voting record than Ted Kennedy?” First, what does Ted Kennedy have to do with it, and is Kennedy’s alleged liberalism a bad thing? And second, did Williams decide to check the validity of the National Journal’s analysis which uses questionable methods or better, check the voters Obama carries in primaries.

Russert, I think, won the debate for most idiotic questions asked. Clinton even called him on asking a myriad of hypothetical scenarios and then demanding yes or no answers from the candidates like on returning to Iraq or invading Kosovo. It’s fine to examine the candidate’s expertise in the topic, like simply asking “What are your concerns about Russia and Kosovo’s independence?” But as we’ve seen, foreign policy is complicated - there’s too many variables to predicts. Is Russert planning on holding the president to what they said in this debate? Things change.

But Russert wasn’t satisfied butchering foreign policy. He also wanted some shocking talking points in there, like asking Obama if he accepts the support of anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, to which Obama gave an unsurprising no. Russert pushed the issue and even started to quote Farrakhan until Obama interrupted Russert, recognizing we don’t need to spread those hateful soundbites.

With two smart candidates willing to produce some real debates, it’s sad that the moderates made the experience worse. Obama and Clinton wanted to respond to statements each other made, a logical request, but both moderates preferred asking long winded questions and once showing the wrong video soundbite. The moderates even seemed disorganized in not preparing time for rebuttals for the candidates - Williams interrupted Clinton’s attempt at a rebuttal with a commercial and then never returned to her.

Even the serious questions asked didn’t reflect the true concerns of the people. NAFTA might be a hot-button issue, but whining about it is not economic policy and neither Russert nor Williams asked for real economic solutions. Exit polls from most states show the economy is the most important issue to voters.

I have a plethora of issues with today’s news media (I’ll start working on the series of posts now). This debate epitomized many of those issues, showing two journalists more interested in grand-standing and showing off their intelligence and power than the politicians they were meant to be featuring. The questions were shallow, uninteresting, and important in some alternate future that may or may not occur. Maybe journalists should start thinking about the public they are supposed to be informing when preparing these questions - and their news reports.