Spare us another “debate” like the Republicans had Tuesday in Iowa.

Actually, I should say like the sham put on by the Des Moines Register and its editor, Carolyn Washburn. Sadly, it shed virtually no new light on any of the candidates (except for Alan Keyes, whose appearance surprised the multitudes who didn’t realize he was running for public office, again).

Washburn failed miserably to achieve her own stated purpose: a face-off to provide “some clarity” about the differences among the candidates. The major problem, of course, was the format in which Washburn laid down the rule that no one could take more than 30 seconds to answer her questions on such complex topics as economy and national security.

I can’t imagine what reason Washburn had for imposing this counter-productive rule. Repeatedly, she tried to enforce this dictate, cutting candidates off precisely at the moment when they could have plumbed their differences. Did she really think that the candidates would be more thoughtful with less time? Did she really think that such an absurd decree would inspire candidates, in a compressed amount of time,  to abandon their canned answers? When it was over, the illumination of the candidates’ differences was faint, indeed.

The high point came when former Sen. Fred Thompson had enough, after Washburn asked for a show of hands of candidates who thought that global warming was a serious problem. When coupled to a 30-second time limit, the question was patently unfair and unbecoming a journalist. So Thompson did what any rational person would have: he refused to participate in the classroom-like exercise, asking instead for time to give (what Washington D.C. pundits demand), a “nuanced”  answer. Nope, she indicated, if he didn’t abide by her rule, he wouldn’t be allowed to answer. In the annals of political journalism, this takes the cake.

Not unexpectedly, the farce turned into a TV producer’s dream format, guaranteed to generate sound bites, and some pretty weak ones at that, but nothing more. Shame on a newspaper for trying to conduct this kind of debate, forum or what have you. Newspapers pride themselves (or at least used to before USA Today began capsulizing the news) for in-depth coverage and leaving the sound bites to TV.

Perhaps the problem was the build-up, like that in a fawning Boston Globe article in which reporter Susan Milligan described Washburn as loaded for bear. In it, David Yepsen, the Register’s political columnist, said the candidates should expect a grilling by Washburn, because she “doesn’t mess around.” Washburn said she had been “boning up on the contenders for nearly a year, reading their books, scouring other media for stories about them, and sharing private lunches and more formal office meetings with candidates eager for the Iowa newspaper’s influential endorsement.” Yeah, well, it’s her job.

In the selection and execution of the debate format, Washburn committed a journalistic cardinal sin: She didn’t allow herself to listen to the answers; to listen to what the candidates are saying. Within those answers are the seeds of the next question, and the one after that, questions that will truly probe and elicit the most informative and interesting answers. Maybe this was too much to ask of Washburn, in an era when journalism schools busy themselves teaching their students the refinements of new age communications, instead of such rudimentary skills as the art of the interview. For whatever reason, you can see it happening a lot more in media interviews.

Not to be too harsh on Washburn, but perhaps a better format would have been to take on each candidate separately for 10 minutes in back to back, in-depth interviews. It wouldn’t have taken any longer. Instead of trying to fit the candidates into a straightjacket of questions prepared earlier, some of which had some or no relevance to particular responders, a sharp moderator could have molded the debate into something meaningful and informative.

But then that’s not as easy as reading ready-made questions off a card; it requires thinking on your feet. Something that we want the candidates to do, but too often don’t expect from moderators.

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