More bad news for ABC and their pathetic excuse for a debate.

ABC News drew both record ratings and a heap of complaints about how Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos moderated the Democratic presidential debate, criticism that Stephanopoulos on Thursday called a sign of how much people care.

By midafternoon Thursday, more than 15,600 comments were posted on ABC News' Web site, the tone overwhelmingly negative. A prominent TV critic, Tom Shales of The Washington Post, said Gibson and Stephanopoulos "turned in shoddy, despicable performances."

Will Bunch, a Philadelphia Daily News writer, posted an open letter to Gibson and Stephanopoulos on his blog. He wrote that he was so angry that "it's hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking." He said the ABC newsmen spent too much time on trivial matters that didn't concern most voters.

"By so badly botching arguably the most critical debate of such an important election, in a time of both war and economic misery, you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself," Bunch wrote.

Greg Mitchell of the trade publication Editor and Publisher said it was "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate this year."

There were some positive comments in the article as well, but from what I have seen in the news and on the most popular progressive blogs the attitude is that this was an orchestrated attack against Obama by ABC News, ex-Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos, and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

They also received a little help from Sean Hannity and FOX News, who by the way have taken this ball and run all over the field with it.

Even a child could see this was a set up and Obama recognized it as well, which made him seem hesitant and "off his game".

I am anxious to see how Olbermann and Jon Stewart respond to this tonight.

In my opinion Hillary did not simply "jump the shark" with this one, she landed in its mouth, was digested, and crapped back out into the ocean.