ABC News blocked off 8-11 p.m. for tonight’s Democratic debate. In reality, the debate didn’t start until 8:32 p.m. Between 8:00 and 8:32 p.m., they had 32 minutes of pre-game, as though this were the Super Bowl of debates. In that pre-game, they talked about… [mc_name name=’Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001098′ ] and [mc_name name=’Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000595′ ]. Towards the end, they mentioned the voter list dust-up between Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee.

The debate itself began with an opening promo in which the tough race between Hillary Clinton (who was really sporting that potato sack chic on the stage) and Bernie Sanders (I’m just glad he made it) was the focus. Martin O’Malley, who I guess ABC’s production crew forgot was going to be there, got zero mentions before he was introduced onto the stage. The very first topic of discussion in the debate was the aforementioned dust-up.

Bernie Sanders said his piece against the DNC, explained that they fired the staffer who accessed the Clinton campaign information, and apologized to Hillary Clinton. Hillary accepted the apology and agreed with Sanders that no one really cared about the scandal. Martin O’Malley yelled about how no one cared about the bickering between Clinton and Sanders, thus proving that O’Malley isn’t actually there and is nothing more than a hologram recording being projected onto the stage, because there was no bickering. In fact, had there not been another MORE THAN TWO HOURS of debate left, the two seemed ready to lock arms and skip off into the sunset.

When the candidates were asked about ISIS and terrorism, Hillary Clinton touted her specific plan of no American ground wars, defeating and not containing ISIS, and something else that was just as vague as the other two points. All we know for certain is that she believes there need to be more Arab troops on the battlefield to defeat ISIS and she will use a lot more planes to blow them up, which I guess is different than Obama? I don’t know.

Then, O’Malley started to speak about how he was the first “post-9/11 governor” and I have no idea what that even means. O’Malley appeared to be attempting to re-create the magic of a candidate taking on the moderators like Ted Cruz did, completely unaware that he is nowhere near as engaging (whether you love or hate Cruz) as Ted Cruz is. So, I changed the channel over to NBC’s live production of “The Wiz” and spent the rest of the evening watching something more realistic than the idea of an engaging debate involving those three candidates.

The Democratic National Committee is dead set on making sure no one watches this debate or any debates. They don’t want you to see three old white people (one of whom has already been pre-selected to win the nomination) debate ideas that are actually out of touch with modern American society and opinion. What they want is for you to go about your lives assuming Hillary Clinton is the obvious choice for Democratic nominee and president.

I feel like I’m being cheated out of a solid opportunity to scout my opponents.