ABC Shrews

Charlie and George were gunnin' for Obama in what "seemed more like a grilling of Obama on a Sunday-morning talk show than a debate between the two candidates.

Tom Shales Wash Post: It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News... whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances. Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.

The boyish Stephanopoulos looked like an overly ambitious intern helping out at a subcommittee hearing, digging through notes for something smart-alecky and slimy. He came up with such tired tripe as a charge that Obama once associated with a nutty bomb-throwing anarchist. That was "40 years ago, when I was 8 years old," Obama said with exasperation.