Iowans pride themselves on being discerning voters. They tell reporters so every time we come to the state and wonder why Iowa gets to have the first presidential nominating contest.

But along with that goes an obligation. And today, the Des Moines Register, the flagship of Iowa politics, failed in that obligation.

Given the honor of hosting the final debate before the first nominating contest — with the Republican field in disarray, no clear front-runner and plenty of issues roiling the debate — the Register managed to produce a 90-minute affair nearly devoid of news.

Heading into today's debate, the campaigns, the press and even voters had been expecting a tear-'em-up affair, with Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney trying to jockey their way back into the race here and Mike Huckabee forced to defend himself from all sides.

Instead, to appropriate a phrase, the candidates were willing, but the moderator was weak.

The only real fireworks occurred between Thompson and Carolyn Washburn, the editor of the Register who moderated the debate. Thompson refused to take part in a show-of-hands question on global warming, demanding time to explain his thoughts. When she refused, he refused to answer.

Washburn repeatedly failed to follow up on the few interesting nuggets that popped up — including an attack by Tom Tancredo on Huckabee's flip-flops on immigration and John McCain's stand against ethanol subsidies — in corn country, no less.

Instead, she asked the candidates to make New Year's resolutions for another candidate, and most of them easily slipped out of it, instead making resolutions they all could live with, such as being nicer or campaigning on the issues.

She also asked whether they would rather be social or economic conservatives. Romney easily slid out of that one, saying he wants to be known as a plain conservative.

Maybe most egregious of all, in a state where the candidates themselves say they can't go to an event without being pestered about where they stand on immigration, the moderator announced at the beginning she wouldn't be asking about the issue because Iowans have already heard enough about it.

Never mind that Huckabee has adopted a new stance in the last week, that McCain is still not where many in his party want him to be, and that Rudy Giuliani has never been specific about how he would handle current non-criminal illegal aliens.

For voters who aren't paying attention, today's debate may have been interesting. But Iowa's whole claim to "first state" status is that its voters are paying attention. That means they would have been better served by intelligent questions that got beyond word games and press-release answers.

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times