So today I got to go toe-to-toe – eh, we were sitting next to each other, elbow-to-elbow – with CNN’s David Bohrman, CNN senior vice president and executive producer of the debate, on Howard Kurtz’s “Reliable Sources.” I give him credit for going on the show and getting hit with questions about CNN’s decisions about this debate, but the answers were – eh, see for yourself.

Considering the grief I gave them… maybe my last appearance on CNN for a while; I guess we’ll see.

KURTZ: Let me get Jim Geraghty in. Do you think CNN fell down on the job here?
JIM GERAGHTY, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, “NATIONAL REVIEW”: Yes. And I get no joy in telling you this, but it’s one of those things where the blogger who figured this out found the affiliation with Hillary Clinton within the amount — I got that message during the debate.
BOHRMAN: So did Anderson. And, in fact, he mentioned it on the air.
GERAGHTY: Well, but Bill Bennett told you that.
BOHRMAN: That’s right.
GERAGHTY: And thank God somebody e-mailed Bill Bennett. And if I were CNN, I’d be on my knees and thanking God for sending you Bill Bennett.
BOHRMAN: I thank Bill Bennett as well.
GERAGHTY: OK, good, because it did not take a great deal of time between that guy Kerr first showing up on the screen, somebody saying, hmm, that’s an interesting question, I wonder if this guy has some affiliation, Googling and finding that out.

Another exchange that I found fascinating, when I asked about the wide-eyed odd guy who asked about the Bible:

KURTZ: Jim Geraghty, “The Weekly Standard” described the questioners as “a threatening parade of gun fetishes, flat worlders, Mars explorers, confederate flag lovers, and zombie-eyed bible wavers.”
GERAGHTY: Appalling. And America — could you find anybody who asked a similar question regarding the Bible or religious beliefs that didn’t look like they were auditioning to lead the Branch Davidians? Was there anybody who didn’t look like a maniac who asked a similar vein of question?
BOHRMAN: YouTube is interesting. The Web is interesting. And guess what? The American public is pretty broad and diverse. These were — this was a debate that from the beginning we knew and accepted would be completely examined. I mean, talk about transparency, all 5,000 questions are up. People can go and make all of their own decisions about the questions.

#more#

KURTZ: But you didn’t use a single question on healthcare, for example.
BOHRMAN: Well, the question that we had teed up on healthcare, which I think we used but maybe we dropped it at the last minute, was to Mitt Romney, and it’s — and it went to the heart of, you want to mandate healthcare, how is that conservative? Because remember, this was not a Democratic versus liberal debate — a Democrat versus Republican debate.
In the last time this group of gentlemen got together and debated, I think it was on FOX, you heard Hillary Clinton’s name 25 or 30 times. OK? It was a cross-party debate. This time it was only two or three times.
These are actually issues that, where these folks disagree…
KURTZ: Right.
BOHRMAN: … and that Republican voters need to use to judge whom to support in that process.

I’m not sure that mentioning Hillary Clinton’s name fewer times is necessarily my measuring stick of a better debate; that seems like an apples and oranges sort of comparison.