Self-styled rebel Alan Keyes should be ashamed of himself.

Dozens of interested politics watchers, including me, tuned to PBS for this week’s Republican debate hoping to hear, in calm tones, how Rudy Giuliani would protect us, how Mitt Romney would be the authoritarian father we’ve always lacked, and how Mike Huckabee would make us feel somehow smarter. We wanted to know about tariffs. About the dependence on foreign oil. About the rampant illegal immigration that only folks as bold as, say, Lou Dobbs are willing to address these days with any real conviction. (If we didn’t, why would millions of us tune to CNN or Fox News every night—because we like the way the anchors look?!)

Instead, we got hijacked by Urkel in a Men’s Warehouse suit.