Anyway, Netanyahu was elected, and with hindsight, was this truly the better option? Netanyahu himself viewed his first term as a failure, being inexperienced, and vowed to improve on coming back to power (which he did indeed in 2009).

Furthermore, a story which ran in the Israeli newspaper Ha’Ir immediately after the elections, claimed that Netanyahu, while studying in the United States, had assumed the name Benjamin Nitai, and that he and a certain John Jay Sullivan had the same social security number. Turned out that most of it was nonsense, but the Israeli citizens, after having elected Netanyahu as their prime minister, suddenly realized how little they had actually known about him.

What we need, then, is not the worthless debates but the good old, reliable, investigative reporting, the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein type, which expose the true leader, and if possible before the elections, please, not after.

Alas, investigative reporting as all of print journalism is becoming an endangered species, when you can get everything you want from the Internet, from whatever sources.

We are left with the debates, and with Janine Driver, an expert on body language, who told Reuters that “Obama kept his head tilted to the side rather than upward, projecting less confidence.” Shame on his campaign people, they should have known better!

Bob Woodward, in his recent book The Price of Politics, reflects sadly on the fact that President Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner were so close last year to reaching a deal on the budget, but lacked the emotional intelligence needed for overcoming their partisan differences.

If we must have these debates, here is my suggestion how to at least make them useful:

Next round, the two gentlemen should switch roles. President Obama should speak as a Republican, and Gov. Romney should talk like a Democrat.

First, it will be a much more entertaining show; and second, it will help them see each other’s point of view, so when one of them is elected and the other sits in the opposition, they will maybe be able to communicate and cut a deal for the general good of the nation.