The face-off in Phoenix

Most of our readers, I assume, missed the latest Democratic presidential debate, as I did. Byron York of National Review Online caught it and provides a report that, surely, is more interesting than the debate itself. Here is the essence of York’s report: “There was no winner in Thursday night’s debate, which was the most contentious of the four debates held so far. Gephardt embarrassed himself, Clark was a punching bag, and Kerry stumbled through. Even Al Sharpton didn’t get in his normal quotient of crowd-pleasing lines. Dean, as he has at previous debates, did not dazzle but also did not make any serious mistakes. When it was over, CNN, the network that sponsored and aired the debate, cut away quickly, with only minimal commentary, to resume its coverage of the Kobe Bryant case. By that time, many of its viewers had no doubt already left.”