I have a hard time watching the presidential debates.

The candidates repeat and refine the same answers to similar questions over and over again. They are not actually debating their policies; they’re just stating them and pointing out to us how they contrast. (We don’t see how well candidates actually understand the issues, what they’ve actually based their policies on in these “debates.”) I suppose it might be too much to expect otherwise, but at least let’s not call it a debate. That just turns it into a farce.

Part of the reason for this lies in the format of the debates. There is little about a question and answer panel that constitutes a debate. Candidates are allowed one response to an accusation or challenge and then they all move on. There is no evaluation and everyone talks in scripted sound bites.

In the YouTube debate, (which one might have expected to be a little more challenging), two women from Brooklyn asked, “If you were elected President of the United States, would you allow us to be married to each other?” Note: This is a yes or no question, and it has a very specific context.

Chris Dodd answered, “I’ve made the case, Anderson, that: my wife and I have two young daughters, age 5 and 2. I’d simply ask the audience to ask themselves the question that Jackie and I have asked: How would I want my two daughters treated if they grew up and had a different sexual orientation than their parents?”

Sir… you don’t need to supply a personal context here. You’ve just been handed one on a silver platter. And Dodd gets through two more sentences before he gives his answer, which is, in case you care, no, but he supports civil unions. He is unable to actually respond to the question asked in the context that it has been asked.

John Edwards committed a similar crime when answering the question, “Should women register for selective service?” He responded, “Anyone who has any question about whether women can serve this country honorably in the military should meet Sally Bardon, who’s sitting with my wife Elizabeth down there. She flew fighter jets, F-16s, into the first 15 minutes of the war in Iraq. Flew over Baghdad. She put her life at risk, at the very beginning of the war. Anybody who has any questions about whether women can serve courageously and honorably need[s] to meet women like Sally Bardon.”

Wow. Instead of answering the question, Senator Edwards made up another question he would rather answer, obviously because everyone already knows and agrees with the answer to it: Can women serve honorably in the military? Well, clearly they do every day.

It seems to me that Edwards wanted to use Sally Bardon so badly that he had to make up a question regarding her because he couldn’t work her into his answers to the questions he was being asked. And this is a man I’ve met (I’m from New Hampshire) and whom I actually like. Sad.

I’ll be fair: It is possible that this is what the majority of Americans want. Maybe the majority of Americans don’t want actual policy discussion. The news media is all about figuring out what people want to see, and they pitch their programs to their largest target audiences.

But I am willing to bet that plenty of people are still gaping on their couches when they watch our potential leaders make automatons of themselves on television. I bet people all over the country watch these debates and say, like I do, good heavens, I don’t think I want any of these people to be president.