"This greatest opportunity in American history to educate the voters by debating the large issues of the campaign failed," wrote one of our greatest historians. The debates were "remarkably successful in reducing great national issues to trivial dimensions." "Finally, the television watching voter was left to judge, not on issues explored by thoughtful men, but on the relative capacity of the two candidates to perform under television stress."

The author was Daniel Boorstin, and he was writing about the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960.

From Against The Grain The Vanishing Character Of McCain And Obama by Dick Meyer

'Nowadays, of course, those four black-and-white debates are recalled as a pinnacle of modern politics, as sober, intellectual and minimally stage-managed conversations between two statesmen who showed mastery of the world's issues. Boorstin saw them as farce.

With a month left in the 2008 campaign, I cannot imagine Boorstin's grave is large enough for adequate rolling over.'