Atlanta (AP) - John, "DNC," Caught In Flagrante Delicto With Prostitute Identified Only As "CNN"

Now Playing: "The Pilgrim," from the 1973 Wishbone Ash masterpiece Live Dates

That seasonal - or just "periodic," perhaps? - disgust with politics has settled in a bit of late. One tires of mopping up other people's garbage, particularly when the season turns a festive and contemplative focus, and even more so when the "other people" in question seem to be acquiring ever more capacious dump trucks...

At any rate, last night's "debate" is now history - or rather, infamy - and with the backlash against DNCNN's comical attempt to pass off card-carrying operatives for various Democrat candidates and leftwing organizations as "undecided GOP voters," there are two basic messages to be distilled:

1. CNN has disposed of any shred of credibility it ever had, and has completed its transformation into campaign publicist for the Democrat National Committee;

2. Even against a deck stacked with hostile adversaries, the entire GOP field stepped up and met the assault with alacrity and surprising ease.

CNN/YouTube have actually done us a favor (inadvertently,) in drawing a vivid contrast between the two major Parties:

- The Democrat Party candidates do not dare appear in debates on the centrist Fox News Channel, hiding instead behind back-room demands for softball questions from CNN's Wolf Blitzer, demands happily agreed-to by that network - and still have trouble giving straight answers (or keeping massive contradictions on vital issues concealed);

- The GOP candidates unhesitatingly agree to appear on a hard-left network, submitting to (what turns out to have been) hand-picked "questions" from leftwing activists masquerading as "undecideds" - and still handle the onslaught with relative competence.

So...even though we're miles away from anything like an ideal candidate, which is better equipped to lead America and Western Civilization through one of the most dangerous eras in its history, the GOP or the Democrat-Socialists?

Next...

[Oyeah, on an activist point, you may want to contact your local cable company and ask that CNN and its affiliates be dropped from your channel lineup, in favor of news organizations that are marginally closer to ethics, or at least sanity.]

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This debate was perhaps the worst example this year of my perennial (quadrennial,) peeve: the superfluous, disruptive live mobs arena audiences.

Once again we had a faceless herd of live attendees communicating to us, loudly, what they think the rest of us should like and dislike - on the irrefutable basis of...there being a whole bunch of them.

When a raucous cheer goes up after a point that is clearly noxious, rotten or just wrong, it brings to mind what Madison warned us about mob rule:

"Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

There's that same gnawing in the pit of one's stomach that one imagines was felt - albeit to a far greater degree - by those lined up for the guillotines of '93, for the Salem witch trials, by those unfortunate enough to have been caught wearing eyeglasses by the Khmer Rouge; etc. In short, the mob mentality is the killer of rationality and of rational debate. It cares not a whit about the merits or demerits of a given point of view - it doesn't listen to points of view. It just obliterates all else in favor of an orgy of quantity, as if that's a substitute for reason.

Yet there it is, right smack in the middle of American Presidential game shows debates.

Once again, with feeling: Can someone explain to me the rationale for having any live audience at a Presidential debate? Does someone believe that careful analysis of contenders for the Presidency is in any way enhanced by juvenile pep squads trading cheers and boos while the rest of us...wait for them to shut up?

Enough already. 'Back in a few.