"People shouldn't lose elections over momentary slips of the tongue. They should lose elections because their overall policies are simply not as good as those of their opponents." - Little Hawk

Absolutely correct, and so far in the "race to the White House" I have not seen or read anything that remotely resembles a real debate throughout the entire process. What we have seen and read over this side of the pond have been TV spots where the various candidates are given the opportunity to mouth their "sound bytes" - That folks is not a debate.

So far no-one from either side has put any meat at all on the bones of their so-called policies, no-one has gone into detail. Without either of those things happening you cannot have a proper debate on policies because you do not have the detail to actually carry out a critical examination of those policies, and that is what a real debate is about. It requires people to stand up and clearly state in detail what they are going to do and how they are going to accomplish it. They then have to defend their policies and means of achieving the implementation of that policy against informed critical examination of it. This requires both honesty and integrity on the part of both sets of candidates. This is what should have been happening in the US since the start of both political parties campaigns - instead of which we get reams on types of glasses, lipstick and a whole load of other completely irrelevant crap, which only ensures that by the time the election comes round most people have completely switched off. But worst of all it robs the electorate of the chance to be informed and see what lies ahead.

Example Amos - Easy, take a look at how Olbermann dealt with Dick Cheney and the ALLEGED/REPORTED meeting between Mohammed Atta and the Iraqi Intelligence Official in Prague - absolutely scandalous.