Mediating the vote. The Nation's John Nichols writes that when "Ted Koppel steered one of the most critical debates of the Democratic presidential contest toward horserace questions about endorsements, poll positions and fund raising, [he] inadvertently created an opening for a serious discussion about one of the most important issues in America today: media policy." Indeed, Dennis Kucinich's rebuke of Koppel has opened the issue wide open. Says Kucinich:

The response of the American people to the exchange between Ted Koppel and myself demonstrates that there is great concern about the proper role of the media in a democratic society. The American people clearly do not want the media to be in a position where they're determining which candidates ought to be considered for the presidency and which ought not to be considered for the presidency. Such practice by the media represents a tampering with the political process itself. The role of the media in this process has now become a national issue central to the question of who's running our country, and I intend to keep this issue before the American people...

The media-minded Kucinich, concludes Nichols, even has his own anti-soundbite soundbite: "I don't think ABC should be the first primary. The first primary should not be on a television network."