THE CNBC DEBATE WAS A TRAIN WRECK, BUT IT WAS A USEFUL TRAIN WRECK, Robert Tracinski writes at the Federalist:

Instead of being a chance for the Republican candidates to debate each other, the CNBC debate ended up pitting the candidates in a debate against the mainstream media.

And that’s what was awesome about it.

A presidential primary is not just an opportunity for candidates to stand around giving their policy positions or telling us the heartwarming and inspirational stories of their upbringing. It’s about putting them to the test and seeing if they can handle some of the real challenges of the job. Can they think on their feet and keep their cool? Can they make a personal connection with the average American? Can they handle stress and make decisions on the fly?

Last but not least—can they deliver a smackdown to the lamestream media?

Someone once compared presidential contests to crash test dummy simulations: it is a series of artificially induced crises intended to show how the candidates will deal with a real crisis. And if we want to test out the candidates in real-world conditions—well, what’s more realistic than figuring out how they deal with a biased, hostile media? Anybody remember moderator Candy Crowley weighing in on Barack Obama’s side during one of the debates with Mitt Romney in 2012? That’s exactly what a Republican candidate can expect in the general election. And it’s certainly what he (or she) can expect while in office. A hostile media is the air a Republican politician is required to breathe, so it’s good to have a nice, strong test to see who chokes and who can handle it.

Rather than writing off last night’s debate purely as a fiasco, I view it as a useful fiasco. We should have one debate like it during every primary cycle.

Mencken once wrote, “It is the prime function of a really first-rate newspaper to serve as a sort of permanent opposition in politics,” and that would be fine, if the MSM actually beat up both sides equally. But one need only look at the disastrous performance of the current president, particularly in regards to foreign affairs, to understand what happens when his operatives with bylines allow him to skate into office, clearing a path for him, rather than challenging him.