Roger Ebert on ‘The Debate That Wasn’t Held’

Legendary Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert weighs in on the apparent end of GOP primary debates. Specifically, Ebert waxes poetic about a debate that will not be held, the March 1 debate that was to be televised by CNN.

The most famous political debates in American history were the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Two intelligent candidates, mutually respectful, riding the debate trail on their own horses from town to town, speaking at length in an unstructured format. As recently as the 1950s, the Illinois Senators Paul Douglas and Everett McKinley Dirksen appeared together on WGN radio for free-wheeling Sunday morning debates, and they weren’t even running against one another.

Now the candidates move surrounded by a scrum of debate coaches, spin doctors, PR strategists and makeup artists. Imagine two candidates set free to go at each other–especially if one is Ron Paul, who can hardly commit a gaffe because you can’t really put anything beyond him.

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