ABC's Debate: 'Disgusting Spectacle' or 'Crime'?

The reviews of last week's ABC News debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to pour in. And, no, they're not getting any better.

Hendrik Hertzberg: ABC's handling of the debate was "something akin to a federal crime. Call it the case of the Walt Disney Company v. People of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (and of the United States, for that matter). Seldom has a large corporation so heedlessly inflicted so much civic damage in such a short space of time."

David Carr: "If any two people on the stage at the ABC presidential debate at Constitution Hall last Wednesday were out-of-touch elitists, it was the people asking the questions, not the people answering them....For many viewers, including me, it was a disgusting spectacle, a tableau that etched not the bankruptcy of politics but of the people covering it."

Frank Rich: "I can't remember a debate in which the only memorable moment was the audience's heckling of a moderator. Then again, I can't remember a debate that became such an instant national gag, earning reviews more appropriate to a slasher movie like "Prom Night" than a civic event held in Philadelphia's National Constitution Center."