Well, I give up.

Last night's ABC debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was just about the worst thing I've sat through in eons. George Stephanapolous and Charlie Gibson spent almost the first hour of the two-hour program insisting that Obama respond to the criticism about his former pastor, explain yet again what he meant by his "bitter" comment in San Francisco, and justify why he doesn't wear a flag pin.

On the Washington Post's politics blog yesterday, Chris Cillizza had called Stephanapolous and Gibson "two of the best in the business." Best in what business? Certainly not political journalism.

The debate was simply a gotcha show, designed, apparently, with the hope that a political discussion would morph into mud wrestling.

Maybe that's all we can expect from commercial television these days. (I loved Tom Shales' assessment in this morning's Washington Post: "In Pa. Debate, the Clear Loser Is ABC.")

Clinton, of course, loves all this. She insists that Obama's San Francisco comment and his former pastor are serious campaign issues. This is just a taste of what Obama would face in a general-election campaign, she says.

Could be. But Clinton has baggage of her own. We may already know about much of it, but that won't keep John McCain from using it in his campaign.

Paid television advertising will play a big role in the general-election campaign, and undoubtedly much of that will be negative attack ads. It will be up to the news media to focus on the issues. But last night, ABC gave us a horrifying preview of how it might cover that campaign.

Obama's critics, including Hillary Clinton, have insisted that Obama's comments about middle-America, guns, and religion were demeaning. What's demeaning is assuming that voters care more about flag pins and slips of the tongue than they do about health care, jobs, education, and foreign policy.