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FACT CHECK: Who's right: Trump or other GOP candidates? GOP candidates debate Russia, immigration and Trump
It would be hard for any presidential debate to be more disappointing and less helpful to the voter than last week's seven-hour marathon of Republican middle school boasting.
By and large, these candidates likely couldn't find the pulse of most Americans with a blood pressure machine.
Frankly, that's not entirely the fault of the candidates. CNN's questions were moronic.
Aside from the fact that most of the queries were designed only to incite candidate spit fights ("Ms. Fiorina, please feel free to respond what you think about [Mr. Trump's] persona."), it was the questions never asked that were astounding. Likewise, the candidates proved themselves wholly susceptible to insult baiting and astonishingly adept at missing opportunities to offer ideas or explain their policies.
Over the past year, America has been rocked over and over by violence wrought by racial, ethnic and cultural intolerance. Yet those issues were never mentioned. Not by candidates and not by pundits.
Nine people of color shot to death in a southern prayer meeting by a white supremacist? Five servicemen killed in Chattanooga in a mass shooting by a disturbed homegrown extremist? Street protests and riots for nights on end in Baltimore after senseless police behavior? These things might as well never have happened. Barbara Bush's likely embarrassment over the revelation that her son smoked marijuana 40 years ago got more mentions than the serious chasms of cultural disconnect across our country.
Race, other than as a synonym for a political campaign, might as well have been a four-letter word.
Sensible gun control received a single, rather back-handed question, and only three candidates were allowed to respond in fleeting and shallow fashion.
Climate change rated but one question and it was addressed only to Marco Rubio and Chris Christie - in part to incite them to attack each other.
Energy was only discussed in terms of Jeb's excitement level.
And oil was mentioned only as "cannabis oil."
You shouldn't think for one minute that equal pay ever came up. Minimum wage did, but only in this way: "Gov. Walker, Dr. Carson wants to raise the federal minimum wage, you have called it a lame idea. "
There was, of course, that scintillating cat-fight between Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina about their high-dollar CEO careers in which each accused the other of being successful only in ruining lives and filing bankruptcies - until Chris Christie shut it down to a thunder of audience applause.
"While I'm as entertained as anyone by this personal back-and-forth about the history of Donald and Carly's careers, for the 55-year-old construction worker out in that audience tonight who doesn't have a job, who can't fund his child's education they could care less about your careers. They care about theirs," Christie scolded.
But far and away, the biggest omission from last week's empty debate was truth. (Aside from Christie's well-placed disdain.)
So much rhetoric, so little time for real issues and real truth.