The Clinton/Obama debate tonight in Philadelphia at 8pm EST will not be broadcast on the west coast until 3-hours later.

And to make this all more annoying if you're a political wonk - junkie - where waiting a whole three hours feels like millennia because it's the internet age and now we're super dramatic about time delays - ABC will not allow clips of more than 30-seconds on the internet until the next day.

Miffed, Patt Morrison wrote today:

Not only is ABC broadcasting the debate on time-delay to us here on the West Coast -- making the debate far less important, evidently, than the Oscars, which get broadcast in real time everywhere in the world.

But ABC is banning any other broadcast news or Web outlets from using more than a single 30-second clip from this presidential debate until the morning after it's over: "We have an obligation to our West Coast affiliates," a spokesman said, "to not make chunks of the debate available until their viewers have had a chance to see them."

Their viewers? Their viewers are American citizens, entitled to take free and unfettered part in the electoral process which -- at last reading -- is not a moneymaking opportunity, but a civic duty.

Go get 'em, Pat.