I don't think the question is about whether a candidate should get "softballs" or "hardballs", the real issue is that many of those questions do not have any business in a debate. For one, some of the questions were nothing short of character attacks in the form of questions. Secondly, debates should be an opportunity for candidates to declare, elaborate, and justify their policy perspectives while engaging in reasoned arguments with their opponent in criticizing the opposing candidate's policies and defending one's own. Questions should focus explicitly on the policy issues that Americans care about. Instead, you have the moderators trying to make a candidate sweat what many have justly called fake-controversies that don't matter but still sway the average uneducated registered voter. The difficulty of the question is only determined by the complexity of the issue.

On the flip side, even when the moderators do ask appropriate questions that require a candidate to explain their policy position and in the process indicate their level of expertise on the issue in question, candidates get away with failing to address the specific question and just using the time to recite some talking points that they had pre-rehearsed that is related to the topic, perhaps tailoring the response ever so slightly to sound like they are actually answering the question. I don't buy it but the moderators and the American public lets them get away with this. Plus it is clear that when addressing the masses Candidates tend to be intentionally ambiguous about the details of their policies so that they can maintain a wider appeal. It seems that in some cases they would rather seem ignorant of things like economics than actually reveal their intended policy with any accuracy.

burndtdan:

Do you still beat your wife?

BKITU:
WHAT THE FARK IS A ROBSTER CRAW?


I really, really, really, really wish that a presidential debate moderator would ask this question.

An unrelated question, is your hatred for America something you've always felt?

BKITU:
I'm afraid I can't answer that until you make it perfectly clear to the American public why you have never felt the need to stop sodomizing dead puppies.

A: Well I can answer that question quite readily, it just so happens that I am a methodist.

Q: If elected will you be willing to meet with leaders of Hamas, or other terrorist groups, and tell them where you've buried all the hookers?

I know the question hasn't been raised but I think it is important to point out that I still wet my bed.