All the debates so far, going back to the presidential primaries, have been bad jokes.

It’s time to cancel presidential debates.

Last week’s debate, touted as a “free-wheeling town hall” was anything but that.

There wasn’t anything open or free-wheeling about it. To call that debate a town hall or open forum was a super practical joke perpetrated on the voting public.

The audience and the questions were rigged and the only thing it proved was that John McCain can’t stand it when the cameras aren’t on him by pacing, looking up at the ceiling, writing notes and otherwise occupying himself.

Okay, McCain’s an egotistical, doddering old man, who never met a regulation he could adopt, nurture or love, nor has he ever had an original thought except to find a new tax break for one of his rich friends.

We knew all of the above, the only thing the so-called town hall did was to reinforced what we already knew.

Even McCain’s sudden “new” grand plan to give relief to home owners and their mortgages bombed, bombed, bombed like Iran, because it was already in the fire.

He even stole the “change” campaign theme directly from Barack Obama.

Yawn! Down with debates. They’re a sham that reveal little or nothing.

Rarely, if ever, is there a “you’re no Jack Kennedy” moment.

All the debates are rigged with softball questions pitched to the candidates by a bunch of gutless reporters who don’t have a curve ball in their entire repertoire.

Of course, it they did lob a curve ball or two, they’d be accused of throwing “gotchya” spitballs, and they can’t have that, because they’re a bunch of wusses and might not be able to get a press pass to the White House after the election.

They’re more than willing to sell themselves and us out for a slip of paper. And when was anything resembling the truth revealed at a White House press conference? Everything the press learns comes from unnamed sources, on or off the record.

When the late Tim Russert couldn’t get a straight answer out of McCain, who in response to a question about the economy shot back: I never said I don’t know anything about the economy. Where’s you get that from?, how can we to expect that the candidates will give the debate moderators or us any straight talk?

We can’t.