There's a cool article in last week's New Yorker by Louis Menand, called "Masters of the Matrix". [right here] It discusses a couple of recent books about Nixon and Kennedy and the manufacturing of image. The article as a whole is excellent, but, in the second paragraph there's this:

Theodore H. White, who subscribed fully to Kennedy’s view that the debates had made the difference in the [1960] election, complained, in “The Making of the President 1960,” that television had dumbed down the issues by forcing the candidates to respond to questions instantaneously. “Neither man could pause to indulge in the slow reflection and rumination, the slow questioning of alternatives before decision, that is the inner quality of leadership,” White said.

Precisely. That's an excellent articulation of my view of stage-and-spectacle style debate.