I think it's great that MySpace and MTV are partnering on these dialogues, and they seem to genuinely be trying to marry the internet and TV. By including the live feedback loop with the pie-charts showing how viewers online are responding to what they're hearing the candidate say, they've definitely injected a new element into the conversation. (Though I'd like to see some way of checking who is voting, or at least how many people are voting overall, because this interactive element is obviously open to being gamed.)

That said, it really bothers me to see, yet again, the "town hall" format turned into something that is a far cry from a real town hall meeting. The young people sitting on the set around McCain looked mainly like props in, yes, an infomercial. Josh reported from inside the hall that the kids were told to behave themselves and not interrupt or otherwise signal their displeasure with anything the candidate might say.

Tell me how that format differs from a staged "people's democracy" meeting in pick-whatever-dictatorship-you-like. Where is the freedom of speech in such a setting? Are we supposed to cede all agency to the MTV hosts, who are themselves actors in a TV show, to perhaps offer context or push back on one of the candidate's answers?

I am tired of all the learned and exhibited deference to authority that pervades our culture. If we have learned anything from Iraq, it's that we have to think for ourselves and not defer to authorities just because they are our betters.

In theory, the culture of the internet is intrinsically more freewheeling and confrontational and democratic than anything we get from capital-intensive, capital-owned Big Media. But when we combine the two, we shouldn't trade a little more online interactivity with our would-be rulers for a lot less in-your-face interactivity.

Not to single out McCain, but in his case this would mean -- at a minimum -- someone asking this simple follow-up question when he states, with all the sincerity and passion that he is notably capable of, that he knows how to win in Iraq. How exactly, Senator? How many lives? How much blood? How much treasure?

In a real town hall, or even a two-bit democracy, we would have heard a follow-up question on that seminal point. God, it almost makes me wish Jim Lehrer had been asking all the questions. (Almost.)