Are Presidential Debates Too Civil?

Amy Davidson, the clip above considered, thinks so:

Bush loses because he first tells her that the question is confusing, then is offended by the implication that a person of “means,” as he puts it—Romney, who would do well to watch the clip, would say “success”—would be any less on top of that sort of thing, (“But I don’t think it’s fair to say, you haven’t had cancer. Therefore, you don’t know what’s it like”), and then never really answers it. Bill Clinton does—first by quickly establishing empathy, but then by arguing that empathy isn’t enough, running through a series of statistics, and saying that the woman’s friends are hurting “because we are in the grip of a failed economic theory.” It is, in miniature, what we saw again at Clinton’s Democratic National Convention speech. He was able to connect; more importantly, he was willing to attack, and to do so with specifics.

This is not an argument for ugliness, but for taking a hard look at what our politicians are doing, and want to do. There is a lot lurking in this campaign, everything from birtherism to questions of class, but many of the worst imprecations are heard not from the candidates directly but in ads paid for by Super PACs, or in manufactured frenzies on Fox News. A little incivility at this juncture—some yelling at or by the candidates themselves—might help by at least making them accountable, if not ashamed.