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So, uh: Does anyone else have debate fatigue?

We sure have had a lot of these things so far. And they're early. For a little context, consider this: Bill Clinton didn't even formally enter the race for President until October of 1991; Republican Fred Thompson, expected to be a serious contender for the nomination next year, still isn't in.

And yet we seem to have a new debate just about every week, if not more frequently – this week has brought us two, with the Logo debate about gay and lesbian issues and the AFL-CIO debate on MSNBC, both featuring Democrats. Master of understatement Newt Gingrich, complaining that the campaign season is now much too long, recently said the debates have become “almost unendurable” -- "a cross between ‘The Bachelor,’ ‘American Idol’ and ‘Who’s Smarter than a Fifth-Grader.’”

Is there a better way to do this? The ratings for the debates have been relatively high this time around, but the key word there is "relatively" – even the much-hyped YouTube debate, certainly the most publicized debate thus far, only attracted 2,622,000 viewers, and Tuesday's debate attracted less than a million. There are legitimate concerns emerging that we may be getting too an overkill point: As Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, told the Times: “Most of us worry that doing all this so early on will wear out the electorate."

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OK, that's over. So let's move onto another powerful and portly patriarch, shall we?

Newt Gingrich, who is flirting with a presidential run, is the subject of in interesting piece by the Associated Press' Libby Quaid today. It opens like this: "Potential GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has promoted public policy positions that closely track the financial interests of companies that underwrite a think tank he founded."

The between-the-lines charge here is that Gingrich is essentially getting paid off to promote certain views. "This is a massive financial conflict of interest: taking money from organizations that have a set of views, then using the weight of your name, Newt Gingrich, to advance the views of these organizations," Sid Wolfe of the liberal Public Citizen told the AP. Said Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation: "It's a phony think tank. He's nothing but a corporate shill and everything he says about health care should be regarded with complete skepticism."

The AP's decision to put forth this piece is noteworthy, since it explores the murky interaction of politicians and donors and tries to get to the bottom of what is ultimately a chicken-and-egg question. Does Gingrich adapt his positions to the interests of the financial supporters of his think tank? Or are his ideas more legitimate than that – are they his and his alone, with any support that comes as a result simply a response to them?

The Gingrich camp would obviously prefer that people assume the latter. "People join [The Gingrich-founded Center for Health Transformation] knowing already what we're for," Nancy Desmond of the Center told the AP. "So if they decide to become members of the center, that's generally because they're supportive of the direction we're going."

More than most politicians, Gingrich has a reputation in Washington as a thinker, a man bursting with ideas about how better to govern the country. That's why this piece hits close to home: It charges that Gingrich's greatest asset – his intellectual seriousness – is a sham.

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