Among the highlights of last week's raucous Democratic presidential primary debate in South Carolina were a few faux pas that were subtly entertaining if you caught them.
One was when billionaire Michael Bloomberg, touting how his financial support helped put Democrats in 21 congressional seats, nearly completed the statement with "I bought them" before catching himself and amending it to "I got them."
Another was when former Vice President Joe Biden told the moderators: "I note how you cut me off all the time, but I'm not going to be quiet anymore, OK?" _ then dutifully fell silent as "60 Minutes" correspondent Bill Whitaker turned and addressed Tom Steyer. (Full debate transcript: tinyurl.com/sc-debate.)
But debates are about more than gaffes and gotchas _ so a moment that won our enmity was when moderator Gayle King, calling time on a Pete Buttigieg answer just as it was getting good, said: "I know it goes fast, but a minute-fifteen is a really long time."
No, it isn't. Not when the people filling it are telling us why they should be the leader of the free world.
Let's see ... what things take longer than one minute and 15 seconds?
_The last one minute and 15 seconds of a football game.
_The last 15 seconds of a close football game.
_The chart-topping 2019 Lil Nas X single "Old Town Road." (At 1:53, it was the fifth-shortest No. 1 song of all time, according to Billboard. Shorter ones include the 1965 Herman's Hermits hit "I'm Henry VIII, I Am." Sorry about the earworms.)
_You, reading this roughly 360-word editorial. (The average adult reads 200 to 250 words a minute.)
_Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas at their famed 1858 debates. (Under that format, one candidate spoke for 60 minutes, the other for 90, then the first candidate again, with a 30-minute response.)
If we want better debates _ and we certainly deserve better than the ones we've been getting in recent years _ one thing that may help is changing the format to allow time sufficient for substantive answers.
Not all candidates will use it well, but that's information, too.
