NEW YORK - The third and final U.S. presidential debate has tossed the ongoing election to its new low, as Republican nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton traded personal attacks relentlessly late Wednesday to draw voters.
Despite the tiresome war of words, the showdown in Las Vegas seemed to be the only one of the three presidential face-offs in which the two candidates focused more on policies rather than each other's personality and history.
However, this is not assuring news for many after the two previous rounds of boisterous chair-hurling.
As expected, in face of the pervasive public anxiety about their country's direction, the two candidates' responses to policy-related questions were hardly constructive or convincing, and did not last long before policy exchanges were turned into nasty insults that even the moderator felt intolerable.
In a jaw-dropping trading of charges, the two nominees accused each other of being a puppet of Russia. The climax came when Trump refused to tell whether he would accept the outcome of this election.
For all its seriousness, the U.S. presidential debates have given place to a deplorable soap opera that no one would feel amusing. (Xinhua)