Gene Healy on Opening the Debates to Third Party Candidates
For tomorrow night's first presidential debate–which will feature only President Obama and Mitt Romney–the CPD has settled on the same fellow who moderated the first debate in 2008, PBS' Jim Lehrer. Lehrer inadvertently provided one interesting moment last time, when he asked the candidates: "Are you willing to acknowledge, both of you, that this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the country as president of the United States?" That was a cringe-worthy way to describe a constitutional officer for a free republic, writes Gene Healy, yet very few people cringed. Neither Sen. McCain nor Sen. Obama objected to the idea that it's the president's job to "rule the country." A third party candidate