Obama, Clinton Debate Widely Panned

ABC received thousands of comments on their website tonight regarding Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolis' hosting of the debate between Obama and Clinton. It's been a challenge to find several positive feedbacks. Most are things like the following:

ABC has reduced itself to tabloid level...

The debate was anatrocity, a total disgrace to journalism. I was truely sickened by the first hour...

The so called debate was a disgrace. Shame of both of the so-called moderators...

This was an extremely disappointing debate. Both George and Charlie focus on issues that are not relevant to what Americans are concerned about. 45 minutes into the debate before a “real” question was asked...

ABC News ought to be embarrassed by both the content and tenor of this debate. Rather than focusing the public's attention on issues of importance and ideas of substance, Mr. Gibson and Mr. Stephanopolous turned this pivotal moment in the campaign into an exercise in tabloid muckracking...

Worst of all debates sofar -- tabloid stuff - insult to the intelligence of the voters -- ABC you blew it -- This could have been the FOX DEBATE -- gutter journalism -- do they think most american voters are morrons... policy discussions is what we want not tabloid nonsense...

AMERICAblog has a roundup of a lot of top political blog reactions.

UPDATE: Video of audience heckling Gibson for announcing yet another commercial break - I guess they were getting a little tired of it.

UPDATE AGAIN: There has been talk defending the moderators for asking those kinds of questions to see how Obama would react to those kinds of attacks in a general election. I can understand some of that. Yes, you want someone who can handle the mudslinging. Problem is, he's already proven he can handle it, and while a gossipy, tabloid question slipped in between issue-based questions may separate the adults from the children, spending over 50 minutes on that crap is wasting everyone's valuable time.