There’s no debate

Since the Writers Guild of America strike began, partisans of both writers and producers have joined in lamenting the sorry pass they’ve been brought to, but also hoping that some good might come of it.

At last, some has. Refusing to cross a possible guild picket line and fearing a sister strike by CBS News writers, the Democratic presidential candidates have canceled their Dec. 10 debate in Los Angeles. Coupled with the crowd-pleasing and, better, candidate-displeasing success of both YouTube debates, this appears to confirm an early prediction about the strike -- that it would hasten innovation in online media in part by revealing the complacency and senility of some traditional media.

As Ellen DeGeneres braves the scab breakers (do writers even have those?) and Carson Daly employs non-union talent (in hope of getting at least NBC’s security guards to tune in), the writers strike appears in danger of winding down. Yet every day we see more reasons for it to go on. Thank the picketers for a respite from the rhetoric of a bland and increasingly uniform Democratic field. That L.A. has been spared outing No. Umpteen in the endless run-up to the first primary is a break in the inaction that we should celebrate, not mourn.

We have been warned that an extended strike might inflict casualties similar to that of the beloved “Moonlighting,” which declined and fell during the 1988 writers strike. Although there’s a case to be made that it was a work of corporal mercy to allow “Moonlighting” -- a late-baroque dramedy that launched and relaunched the respective careers of Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd -- to die with dignity, we’re fascinated, though concerned, about the transformation of the presidential debates.

When politicians are innovating faster than the entertainment industry is, the twilight of the American nation may truly be upon us.