Over at Andrew Sullivan's blog, Talking Points Memo's Eric Kleefeld analyzes the gay issues debate broadcast Thursday night on LOGO. He writes, "The hosts might have given a candidate a tough question or two in order to put them on the spot, but they would not have asked anything intentionally damaging." I'm not sure he and I watched the same debate. I had my doubts about the debate going in, particularly in light of Kleefeld's obvious point that, "The nature of the Logo forum was that the candidates were facing a group essentially pledged to support the Democratic nominee." The Human Rights Campaign, the organizer of the debate, has withstood a great deal of criticism lately for being too cozy with the Democrats and Hillary in particular. And the format of the event--giving each candidate 15 minutes, separately, to face the panel--was an obvious concession to the front-runners so as to let them avoid the inevitable embarrassment that would have arisen were Kucinich and Gravel, both supporters of gay marriage, allowed to challenge the top three head-on. But I was pleasantly surprised by the interviewers. Melissa Etheridge, for all of the snarky criticism she has been getting, told Hillary Clinton that after gays helped her husband win the presidency, "we were thrown under the bus." (How does this count as "fawning," as Kleefeld writes?) Every candidate had to face tough, consistent questioning from the panel, which did not treat anyone with kid gloves (except, of course, Kucinich and Gravel, with whom there was nothing to disagree). What the debate did was show the distance between the leading Democrats' rhetoric on equality for gays with their actual policy positions. One thing that Kleefeld has right is the obvious point: Richardson lost. But in light of the tough questioning, it's not so simple to assert that "in order for a candidate to be damaged at this forum, he/she had to really screw it up" (emphasis original). For the candidates who do not support gay marriage, this debate was certainly not tee-ball, as Kleefeld implies. Richardson lost for the simple reason that he's a buffoon and an opportunist--this is nothing new to anyone who's even been remotely watching the race--and his performance on Thursday once again conjured how appalling it was for this man to have represented the United States at the United Nations for nearly two years. --James Kirchick