"After all, the band played on while the Titanic sank."

Only in the movies.

My late mother, Renee Roy, an actress you knew well from Sid Caesar days and beyond, Barry, would get physically sickened by political coverage. She lived just long enough to enjoy Keith Olbermann as a non-sickening breath of fresh air.

These days, I listen to the debate on NPR, then watch Olbermann for analysis.

Thanks to Wolf Blitzer, Lou Dobbs, John King and Candy Crowley, CNN has no more credibility, other than as an outlet for defensive McCain talking points.

I ditched my satellite about 6 months ago. Old school rotating pre-amped deep fringe antenna. Yeah baby! I'll be able to see the despair and desolation for FREE!

That is a pretty good stab at it Mr Levinson. But considering that politicians explicitly subsidized the media of the the circus, I would say only Fox and ClearChannel in its heyday come close to the Roman model. And in their case, though the relation between ruler and and entertainer is intmate and corrupt, the flow of money is in the other direction.

This is why I watch political events like debates and conventions on either CSpan or PBS

Actually have the SNL people host the debate. Whenever a candidate is not funny enough, they get zapped. Debates are all jokes anyway - might as well make them entertaining. OR, give the "zapping" power to people in the focus groups. Don't like what the candidates are saying and press the buttons.

Or best yet, listen to debates on the radio. That's what I did on the last one. You don't have a choice but to listen to content.

Better be careful. After talk radio what is next?

"Some say we are in the early days of the American version of the fall of the Roman Empire. Therefore, is television the electronic version of the Roman Circus? "

You've hit the nail on the head with this question. Perhaps, you should read 'Beyond the Rubicon' for starters!

I've found the best solution to ADD-TV, is to switch the channel. I don't think C-Span will ever go the circus route and it's much easier on the eyes and ears.

The sentence "Television has never found an idea it can't exploit" is funny, sad, and true all at the same time.

What is truly disturbing about the "CNN Graph" is that it emphasizes the point that what truly matters is the impact that a candidate's statement has the moment it is uttered. The immediate interpretation of the words becomes bigger than what was actually said.

All of which makes me wonder: Whatever happened to thoughtful, reflective decision-making?

Don't misunderstand. For political junkies like pretty much everyone that goes to a site like The Huffington Post, obviously there is interest in polls, trends, etc. But the idea that:

1) A small group turns dials based upon their instant reaction to a comment.
2) The results are immediately broadcast to the nation.
3) The comment or the results are given no context

is something that should bother you. The group is more or less randomly chosen (e.g., a group of independent voters), handed a dial, and told to react to candidate statements.

One party's faithful will see some graph reactions as justifications and other reactions as heresy. The other side will see the exact opposite from the same graph.

The only thing sillier than the reaction graph during a debate? Watching the spin doctors trying to declare their candidate the "winner" immediately after the debate.

If politicians keep wanting to offer bread and circuses instead of sharing with America the solutions they have to the problems facing this country, then it may be the case that America is in its fall and decline period.

Stylistically, CNN and FOX are the same animal in a lot of ways. I get yelled at when I point this out. I find my own informational intake habits are changed - watching on PBS seems frustratingly slow.

It's a common observation that we're getting more demanding of volume, faster, and thus dumber, but to me it's a trade-off like most changes and sea changes. I think we're much more agile watchers, much more able to handle the simultaneous, absorb vignetted stories, and synthesize information. There are up and downsides to being hit with the zeitgeist meters at the same time you're getting the information.

At the same time, this appetite for multiplicity should be able to encompass, rather than eclipse, a slower, more reflective, more surgical understanding and analysis.

Do what I did, watch them on PBS where they had no 'gimmicks'. I don't want the gimmicks telling me so much useless and biased info. More importantly , we need more, much longer and far less structured debates to make the canidates go into real discussions of issues, not just going for sound bites no matter how complex the issues.