The night I got to moderate presidential debate

Wow!

That was an illuminating debate.

It wasn't so much that I heard any new policy prescriptions.

It wasn't that there was so much heat generated between the 2016 Republican presidential candidates.

Of course, it was the night the establishment media imploded by placing their own biases and, well, hatred on public display.

And it was all arranged with the full cooperation of the Republican Party establishment.

What we are seeing in the 2016 presidential race is somewhat unexpected. We're seeing political establishments crumbling:

We've watched avowed socialist Bernie Sanders challenge Hillary Clinton.
We've watched Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina blaze the uprising against Jeb Bush in a deck stacked by Mitt Romney in 2012.
We've watched 50 conservative freedom-fighters in the House topple John Boehner as speaker of the House.
And we've watched the establishment media go down in flames as they support the Washington political establishment.

Who expected all this?

Not me.

It's almost too good to be true. I'm afraid I may awaken from this dream.

Of course the fight is just beginning – and there's a long way to go.

Among grass-roots Republicans, many are wondering why the party establishment would subject its own candidates to the kind of abuse we witness in the CNBC debate.

The answer is simple: They like the establishment media. They hate the alternative media. Mitt Romney spelled it out recently in a candid interview with none other than David Axelrod, Barack Obama's chief political architect.

Maybe the presidential candidates themselves should get together and arrange a debate that would focus on issues, policies, what's wrong with Washington and how they would change it.

Maybe alternative media outlets should get together and put on their own debate.

Back in 2008, which seems like a long time ago, I was asked to moderate a Republican presidential debate. It was … different. The problem, of course, was that John McCain didn't show up, though nearly everyone else did.

It didn't get a big television audience – no major network cared to air it. That's the problem.

But how would you like to see something like that tried in 2016?

I think it would be revelatory. I think it would be great fun. I think it would be stimulating. I think you'd hear more substance than in any of these phony-baloney debates where anchors are just trying to steal the show from the candidates – and looking bad doing it.

Wouldn't it be fun to see people who actually might vote in a Republican primary doing the grilling, rather than apparatchiks for the Democratic Party hurling ill-conceived and transparent gotcha questions?

Wouldn't it be fun to see people like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage asking questions?

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but it seems the 2016 campaign is already redefining the art of the possible.

Let's face it, the Big Media have had their day. They're relics of another era. They're dinosaurs and they're going down. They are losing audience every day. Why should their audiences be propped up by media fat-cats who only want to bring them down?

It doesn't make a lot of sense – except to the Republican establishment.

But how about some tough questions for Hillary?

Who is better positioned to ask them than her critics?

If Republican candidates are going to be grilled exclusively by Democratic Party surrogates, why not turn the tables on Bernie and Hillary? Wouldn't that be good television? And if the candidates don't show up, the questions can be asked of empty chairs.

Could it happen?

I would have said it was impossible a few months ago.

Today, I wouldn't discount it.

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