Last night, performer/journalists went after audience emotional reaction, passed on questions all of us need answered and the result was an uninformative train wreck.

Whatever the effect on this presidential campaign, the impaneled questioners demonstrated conclusively the overarching need for nonprofit, nonpartisan League of Women Voters oversight of political campaign debates.

That's the only approach proven to restrain the otherwise commercially irresistible drive of full-time performer/journalists to use presidential debates the same way they use other forums -- by doing whatever they feel they can get away with to build their own audience numbers and so better pay the bills.

Only the oversight of an impartial gatekeeper who has the authority to bar them from participation can restrain the impulse to ask eyebrow-raising questions which consume time better-used for questions about the issues which will actually preoccupy the time of whoever is actually elected president.