The media is stupid for many reasons, some of which are obvious and some of which are obvious-but-I'm-going-to-enumerate-them-below. To wit:

The media spends months saying "Wouldn't it be great to have a campaign about the issues?" while they obsess over everything but, as if they're slaves to every sound byte, gaffe, and scandal that flitters its way onto YouTube. In the Democratic Primary, there defense was, "Well, Hillary and Obama are so close on the issues. But when it comes to the General... Well, then you're gonna see us do our job!"

Well, not so much.

As the past few weeks have proven, it takes a real crisis to get the media to focus on issues. (But enough about the Palin-Couric interview! Zing!)

With the election less than 40 days away, with the economy in freefall, with Biden secretly travelling back in time to the 1920s to bring them FDR and the television (Zing!), the two major party candidates have finally had their first 90 minute debate, covering the afforementioned freefall economy, two wars, and the fate of the free-ish world...

...and what does the media make of all this?

"Kind of boring. Not enough sound bytes."

The pundits on the teevee are telling me that there were no "break out moments" and that it was a "snoozy" affair, because all the candidates did was talk about the... well... you know.

How about this:

(Forgive me for partially repeating myself, but I'm developing a meme.)

How about the media stops the self-loathing routine and actually puts their money where there mouths are. I mean, CNN and MSNBC and Fox have 24 hours to fill every day. How about they set aside one hour a day for a teevee show called "The Issues."

Every day you could cover a different issue. (Some issues might take a lot longer than one day to work through. That's okay.) You bring on experts who can make the best case for each side, free of partisan spin, free of rancor, and really focus on what's practical, what will work, and what will improve the lives of the American people. Separate fact from opinion from obfuscation and lies. Crystalize the reasons why reasonable people would disagree on key issues of the day and then turn it over to the American people to decide what they believe.

That would still leave 23 hours a day for the pundits, for the YouTube gotcha-ism, and for slow tracking shots of bears on the loose in the San Diego suburbs.

I suspect that cable news execs think the American public is too stupid, too shallow, too has-a-short-attention-span to appreciate a show like that. But we live in the most powerful democracy in the history of history, in a time of paradigmatic upheaval, and we face unprecedented challenges. I'd rather that we overestimate the American people and be wrong, than understimate us and be too late.