If congressional Republicans and President Bush need an argument for de-funding the Public Broadcasting System, they got it Thursday night with the slant the network’s Jim Lehrer brought to the assignment of moderating the presidential debate.

With all the focus on Messrs. Bush and Kerry, Mr. Lehrer’s role may have gotten lost in the shuffle. A transcript of his questions in the debate appears in the adjacent columns.

Mr. Lehrer’s inquiries are almost comical in the pessimism of their underlying assumptions and in the softballs they serve up to Mr. Kerry. The questions to Mr. Kerry amounted pretty much to, “Tell us about Mr. Bush’s lies and colossal misjudgments on the Iraq war.” The questions to Mr. Bush pretty much amounted to, “Why are so many of our boys dying in Iraq, and when will you get them home?” The only question about freedom abroad pertained to Russia.

The next presidential debate, Friday night, will feature questions from ordinary citizens. But the vice presidential debate tomorrow night and the final presidential debate, October 13, will, like Thursday’s, feature questions posed by representatives of the mainstream press. If the pattern displayed by Mr. Lehrer keeps up, in 2008 the candidates may prefer to take questions from a panel of opinion journalists that is balanced to include equal numbers of liberals and conservatives. Or the candidates may want to reduce the role of the moderators altogether and instead ask each other questions that they come up with themselves.