Initially, I prepared this story as a preview in the St. Petersburg Times for tonight's presidential debate -- based on an interview I'd done with moderator Jim Lehrer back in August -- before John McCain kept everybody guessing until the last moment over whether he would actually participate.

Now that we know McCain is showing up in Mississippi, here's a look at the American journalist who may be best suited to handle this clash of the electoral titans: PBS anchor Lehrer.

Well known for his old school journalism values and determination to keep the focus away from himself during debates, Lehrer, 74, will take the stage just months after recovering from heart valve surgery in April.

Here are some quotes about the debate culled from an interview with Lehrer in August:

“My bottom line has always been that after one of these debates -- and this will be my 11th debate -- if people are talking about me or some question I have asked, then I have failed. This is not about the moderator -- it never has been. It’s about the people who are running for president of the United States. It’s not about the question, how cute they are or how tough they are -- their only purpose is to draw out the candidates about what they think and what they believe they will do, end of statement, there’s nothing more to it than that. It sure as hell is not about me -- and it never will be.”
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“You gotta remember what’s going on here. This is the final act. This other stuff has been the preliminaries. Now, we’re at the main event, we have the two people there, one of whom is going to be the president of the United States, and a lot of people haven’t paid attention to any of this stuff. Polls have shown in the past, 30, 40 percent of the people are still not sure who they’re going to vote for. Some people want the debate to confirm their opinions, other people are undecided . . . it’s a new stage, with a new curtain going up and a whole new audience. Everybody will be there for that. What happened before, is not anywhere near the same frame of reference.”
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“I’m very old-fashioned. I believe each type of journalist should do his or her own type of journalism. There’s straight reporting, there’s analysis and there’s opinion and those three should not be done by the same people. And I think if they blur the lines too much they’re going to lose some credibility when they really need it. They’re going to need it when there’s a breaking news event and there are some struggling facts. And when somebody who is giving you the facts that are struggling to be understood also has been giving you their opinion, well . . . I just think the route toward credibility and retaining credibility is to keep those separations there.”
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“Nobody is sick of hearing about the next president of the United States. And if you think of them, in this case, you’ve got John McCain or Barack Obama -- one of them is going to be the next President. And the American public cares deeply who that person is going to be. Because their home mortgage, their jobs, whether their kids or themselves is going to be sent into harm’s way, is riding on who that person is going to be. The fact that somebody (in some poll) says ‘Oh I’m tired of hearing about fill-in-the-blank’ -- that’s ridiculous. There’s no evidence that I’m aware of that people are tired of this at all. They may be tired of hearing trivial matters about these people. But they want to hear everything that matters about them -- what they want to do about energy, what they want to do about Iraq -- If they’re on a substantial subject, they’re engaged.”

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