Republicans are wise to avoid the CNN/YouTube "debate"

The Republican presidential candidates who declined to participate in CNN's YouTube "debate" are making the right decision:

I breathed a sigh of relief when most of the Republican presidential hopefuls declined to participate in the next YouTube debate. I think they displayed good judgment and common sense in refusing to be inveigled into what is at best a CNN publicity scheme and at worst a ruse to force Republican candidates to display themselves in an unfavorably biased environment.

Televised debates, in general, encourage the kind of shallow, sound-bite politics that everyone seems to be opposed to, but yet demands that candidates engage in. The YouTube debate format is even worse - it degenerates the very important process of electing a president into a kind of ridiculous game show.