Presidential Debates

The World More than a year after becoming China's president, Hu Jintao was handed the full reins of power when his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, gave up the nation's most powerful military post. The move ends a power-sharing arrangement that has seen two rival camps maneuvering for position as China faces major foreign and domestic policy challenges, such as relations with Taiwan, North Korea's nuclear program, government corruption and dealing with rapid economic growth. Iran defied the United Nations by announcing that it had begun converting tons of uranium into the gas needed to turn the radioactive element into nuclear fuel.

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court and the Federal Communications Commission cleared the way yesterday for President Clinton and Bob Dole to debate tomorrow night with no other candidates on the stage.Ross Perot, the Reform Party candidate for president, and John Hagelin, the Natural Law Party candidate, lost their bids in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the debate from taking place without them.Although their legal options are not exhausted, Perot has decided not to go on to the Supreme Court at this stage, and Hagelin will not do so at least until early next week -- thus eliminating any legal barrier to the debate tomorrow between the two major-party nominees.

WHEN BILL CLINTON and Bob Dole meet tonight in their first presidential debate, you can be sure neither believes the election has already been decided. They know that in at least two (and maybe more) of the six such encounters since John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon started this ritual in 1960, the debates were probably decisive. Republican Dole will be looking for a breakthrough; Democrat Clinton will be trying to protect his big lead.Why then is President Clinton willing to debate at all?

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court justices reacted negatively yesterday to a plea by publicly owned broadcast stations for a constitutional right to exclude minor-party candidates from campaign debates on radio or television.By the end of an hourlong hearing, it appeared that a state-owned Arkansas TV network may be hard-pressed to win full First Amendment protection from the court when the network chooses debate participants.The court's ruling may have a wide impact, since two-thirds of the nation's public TV stations are licensed to state government agencies.

In the past, Americans watched the presidential debates and heard the TV and newspaper commentary afterward. In 2012, however, the setup changed. This year, instead of watching the debates, citizens read live, moment-to-moment commentary on the event via Twitter, the social networking site. In 140 characters or less, users of Twitter (over 500 million worldwide) can tweet about anything and everything, including how the presidential candidates were performing in the debates. People could watch the debate on television while simultaneously tweeting about it from their laptops.

WASHINGTON -- Americans have never seen anything quite like the nine days of presidential and vice presidential debates that start Sunday evening in St. Louis.It's not just that there will be three candidates on stage for the first time in a general election. Or so many debates jammed into so short a time. Or even that the encounters could be President Bush's last hope of reversing the powerful political tide that threatens to sweep him out of the White House.What's likely to be special this time, debate experts say, is the content of the debates.

WASHINGTON -- All manner of excuses and dodges are coming from the major television networks over the fairly straightforward proposal that they join together to provide a few minutes of free prime time each night for the presidential candidates in rotation during the final month of the fall campaign.Imaginative alibisThe network alibis for declining range from concern that the candidates will only use the time to blow their own horns to predictions that viewers in droves will turn such segments off.But an obvious reason for the networks dancing around the proposal is that the proponents are specifying that the free slot be in prime time, now given over almost exclusively to entertainment shows that draw huge advertising revenues.

WASHINGTON -- Like his father before him, Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush is playing games with a carefully formulated package for presidential debates by the bipartisan commission that has been running them even-handedly for the last three elections. Mr. Bush is dashing cold water on the Commission for Presidential Debates' proposal for three 90-minute confrontations between himself and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore, each with a single moderator, on Oct. 3, 11 and 17, to be carried by all major television networks.

In 2008, Americans will pick a new president. How will we make our decision? We'll look at the candidates' records, certainly - but they'll have no record showing how they'd act as president. We'll listen to their stump speeches, but those are invariably more like advertising pitches than genuine windows into their minds. We'll watch them debate, but presidential debates mostly summon forth the candidates' usual talking points. And, of course, we'll watch countless TV commercials. Wouldn't it be better if before hiring someone to guide our country through these dangerous times, we could get a meaningful look at how he or she would perform as president?

Considering my line of work, I bet you think I am watching the presidential debates. I bet you think I get together with like-minded friends and root for President Barack Obama, or Vice President Joe Biden, and then my friends and I critique, or excuse, their performances while reinforcing each other's opinions. Well, you would be wrong. I can't bring myself to watch the debates. First thing the next morning, though, I sign on to Facebook and read the comments there to get an idea of how things went the night before.