Some prissy types are bemoaning the insertion of actual issues like crime and governmental incompetence in Durham’s elections, calling it “dirty politics.” Debates between mayoral candidates have been termed “contentious.”

You want contentious? Try this: A political debate in Moscow turned into a gunfight, and only one of the debaters even showed up.

Make what you want of it, but the pro-Putin hardliner former commie (what the press likes to call “conservative”) was the one who refused to show, and the debate wasn’t even hosted by Fox News. The pro-freedom, pro-market candidate (what the press likes to call “liberal”), Masha Gaidar (daughter of economic reformer Yegor Gaidar), was there and ready to debate.