The ABC News-moderated debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, April 16, has been universally panned. Most commentators have pointed to ABC's highlighting of gaffes, scandal, and personality in the effort to get the candidates to snipe at each other rather than talk about issues that people care about. Especially disturbing about ABC's farce was the racist character of the questions George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson chose to put forward.

For example, one question directed at Barack Obama accusingly asked about his decision to express patriotism in ways other than wearing a US flag pin. Gibson worked hard to turn the question into a real issue. 'It comes up again and again when we talk to voters,' he insisted.

Obama responded, 'I have never said that I don't wear flag pins or refuse to wear flag pins. This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us from what should be my job when I'm commander in chief, which is going to be figuring out how we get our troops out of Iraq and how we actually make our economy better for the American people.'

Ironically, standing not three feet from him was Sen. Clinton without a flag pin, and the two ABC moderators themselves were without flag pins. Sen. Clinton was not questioned about her patriotism.

The unevenness of this question is little more than a subtle racist and xenophobic smear. It suggests that if you have dark skin and a funny name, you'd better have other markers of your patriotism. Your years of service to your community and to the country do not in themselves count. It also hints, by contrast, that white people need not be interrogated about their patriotic fervor, or that wearing a flag pin is enough.

After this pointless question, Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton administration official, moved on to another attack on Obama – not about policy, but on personal relationships.

Very little probing of the candidates on the differences in their records, views of, and plans for the Iraq war took place in the same way Gibson felt the flag pin question was so crucial to voters. Clinton was not asked to give an accounting of her war vote. Neither Gibson nor Stephanopoulos asked her for a firm commitment to end the war beyond her very vague proposal to plan the initial withdrawal of some troops.

Questions on tax and budget policy reflected Republican sentiments. Gibson argued that Obama's proposal to raise the cap on Social Security payroll taxes in order to better fund that program without cutting benefits or raising the retirement age, would harm middle class people. Currently, millionaires and billionaires are exempted from paying Social Security taxes on the huge portion of their income above $97,000. In other words, Gibson appeared to be arguing, like Republicans typically do, that people who earn more than $97,000 are middle class. When Obama pointed out that 94% of Americans earn less than that, Gibson couldn't let it go and returned to it several times.

Obama explained, 'I'd be willing to look at exempting people who are making slightly above that [the current cap of $97,000 in income]. But understand the alternative is that because we're going to have fewer workers to more retirees, if we don't do anything on Social Security, then those benefits will effectively be cut, because we'll be running out of money.'

But instead of accepting Obama's explanation and probing for the details in Clinton's plan to establish a commission to look into the matter, Gibson appeared to editorially insert his personal opinion again in implying that people who make between $100,000 and $250,000 are the 'middle class.' This isn't a new position for Gibson either. He tried to make a similar claim during the New Hampshire debate in January, but was booed heavily by the audience. This time, however, ABC rules forbade expressions of disgust by the audience.

Hillary Clinton was challenged with questions about her honesty and her claim to have come under sniper fire in Bosnia. In response Clinton blamed her gaffe on a lack of sleep, and said: 'I just said some things that weren't in keeping with what I knew to be the case ... [I]t just didn't jibe with what I had written about and knew to be the truth.'

In other words, she admitted that when she is tired she may knowingly lie about things. Was there any probing follow-up? No. In an obvious attempt to get Obama to pounce on Clinton, Stephanopoulos immediately shifted to him. Obama took the high road and fended off Stephanopoulos' bait.

Likewise, in a question about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Gibson and Stephanopoulos demanded Obama re-hash his disavowal of Wright's controversial remarks. In her response, Hillary Clinton misleadingly tried to link Obama to Louis Farrakhan and Hamas. There was no challenge to this statement from our editorially-minded moderators; no effort on their part to pull apart the inaccuracy in her statement, or at least give her an opportunity to say she didn't really think Obama had any connection to Hamas or Farrakhan.

Finally, after spending a few minutes on budget policy and views on local gun control laws – all of which is subject to more dynamics than the will of a president – Gibson and Stephanopoulos turned to affirmative action, asking Obama for a detailed discussion of his view on the policy.

Obama argued for a more nuanced affirmative action policy that considers more than a person's race or gender. He said, 'I still believe in affirmative action as a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination, but I think that it can't be a quota system, and it can't be something that is simply applied without looking at the whole person, whether that person is Black or white or Hispanic, male or female.'

And when Hillary Clinton avoided the question by talking about a lot of other issues other than affirmative action, there was no follow-up from either Gibson or Stephanopoulos. Clearly, the question was aimed at the Black candidate and Clinton was not expected to state her views on how her presidency would handle affirmative action itself.

In sum, the debate said more about ABC News than it did about the candidates. It showed that ABC News is not above sensationalizing personality at the expense of the issues. It revealed that ABC's pretense at journalism is a cover for promoting prejudices and divisiveness.

Barack Obama appeared to be above it all, sticking to the major themes of his campaign: unity, transformational politics, and sidestepping personal attacks in favor of talking about issues. Hillary Clinton did not do so well on this score, appearing on at least two points in the debate to admit that her misleading, personal attacks on Obama were something of a stand-in for likely future Republican attacks against him.

The main point is that voters don't need another forum for mud-slinging politics. We see thousands of TV commercials, earned media attacks on candidates, op-eds, cable TV talk shows, and blogger punditry where such politics thrive. Why can't a televised debate foster serious discussions about the issues, rather than promoting racist divisiveness and slash and burn hostility?

ABC News just flat out failed to play any positive role in our democratic process last night.