The First Debate: Where's the Beef?

I hadn't planned on writing about the presidential debates today. Frankly, staged debates seldom matter in politics. They serve only two purposes: to trip up one of the candidates in a gaffe or to sway undecided voters. A gaffe can be politically embarrassing, but did anyone truly believe, when President Gerald Ford proclaimed in his 1976 debate "there is no communist domination of Eastern Europe" that he was unaware of Soviet troops stationed in Czechoslovakia, Soviet tanks in Poland, or the...