What did they expect?

A forum for policy, views, debate?

“John, do you want me to answer or do you want to answer? Gotta tell ya, even in New Jersey what you’re doing is called rude.”

—Chris Christie, to a moderator who interrupted him Wednesday night

SO THAT’S where a body can find the CNBC network. It took us a while to find it on the ol’ remote. Clearly, that channel isn’t on the favorites list. And even more clearly, we’re not going back to CNBC any time soon.

As soon as somebody on TV mentioned “Republican debate” the other night, the kids scattered and we had the tube to ourselves. And even before the debate began, it wasn’t hard to see what was coming. Like a nasty cloud on the western horizon. Emphasis on nasty.

The pre-debate talking heads gave it away. As they talked over each other, grabbing for the rare attention their network was getting on this night, and as they repeated one-liners they’d obviously written down somewhere before the show began, as they tried to one-up the previous snarky comment with an even snarkier one, even while the candidates made their way to the stage, one of the talking heads on CNBC blurted it out: What we want to see is a cage match. I want to see these candidates go after each other.

Cage match? Go after each other? As in pro wrestling? That fake stuff with the roided-out men yelling at each other and throwing chairs and gouging eyes and pretending to be half-dead before waking up to the cheering crowds to take revenge for that below-the-belt dirty shot? Was this really a news channel or did we get it confused with latenight pay-per-view programming?

Nope, the TV’s remote guide said CNBC. And as tempting as it was to find something more edifying to watch—like, maybe, watching a moth climb a drape in the next room—we settled down for the performances.

The debate started with a dull question every job candidate is coached to answer: What are your weaknesses? And it might have been the best question of the night. Because from there, it was all downhill.

Jeb, why are you dropping in the polls? Governor Huckabee, can you say something bad about The Donald? At one point the moderators asked the candidates about fantasy football. For crying out loud, the audience booed some of the questions.

Here’s just an example to show Gentle Reader how questions to Republican candidates are framed on CNBC. This is John Harwood questioning Jeb Bush, after Mr. Harwood helpfully noted that Mr. Bush was no longer at center stage: “Ben Bernanke, who was appointed Fed chairman by your brother, recently wrote a book in which he said he no longer considers himself a Republican because the Republican Party has given in to know-nothingism. Is that why you’re having a difficult time in this race?”

Wow. Why not just ask, Mr. Bush, is your party too stupid for you?

And when the moderators weren’t asking silly questions, they were interrupting the candidates—or picking fights.

When debate moderators can make Ted Cruz look and sound reasonable, you know they’re not having a good night. And the junior senator from Texas did indeed sound reasonable, at least when he seemed to have had enough with the debate, or at least the questions. Or as he put it: “The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. This is not a cage match. Look at the questions— Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen? . . . . How about talking about the substantive issues that people care about?” And the audience roared. Substantive issues? Like where did the candidates stand on free trade, and how they differ in their approaches to it? What they might propose in their first 100 days on the job to get the American economy out of this funk? How they stood on the minimum wage, and whether it helps or hurts the middle class?

All that stuff took a backseat to fantasy football, poll numbers and snark. Even liberal commentators were shaking their heads Thursday morning.

It wasn’t a good night for CNBC. Or, for that matter, American politics.

AFTER the battle, by the dawn’s early light, the chairman of the Republican National Committee put out the usual press release about being proud of the candidates. But he also noted that CNBC moderators “did a disservice to their network, our candidates, and voters.”

Okay. But the Republican National Committee agreed to this debate, in this forum, on that channel. Did the powers that be in at GOP headquarters think anything different would happen? Do they not know what CNBC is? Voters, regular Joes and other innocent bystanders can be forgiven for not knowing exactly where to find that channel. But the pros at Republican Party headquarters should have somebody keeping tabs on these things.

Lesson: Republican candidates have enough problems debating Democrats. They shouldn’t have to fight the moderators, too.

It’s a lesson that shouldn’t have to be learned every four years.