There are some perfectly valid reasons why we don't have a regularly instituted Question Time in our form of democratic government.

The British have to rely on some such ritual to ensure a modicum of "oversight" of Executive power for the very same reason that the Prime Minister holds all the reins in their system; ie, the Unitary Executive system guarantees that in Windsor Forest the Legislative and the Executive are one; allowing the opposition ranks to lob a few volleys of interrogatory bluster at the PM is one of the few devices in such a system that allows for any review of any kind for actions undertaken by a parliamentary leader with a significant majority. Otherwise, what you would have would be a sort of elected dictatorship, especially now that the Lords have been effectively neutered, becoming instead of a truly supervisory legislative body just another repository for cronyist patronage from the PM. In the Blair and post-Blair era, the initiatives that proceed to the Commons from "the Other Place" are mostly requests for dinner dates with celebrities and other favors from rich clients.

In our country the arrangement of institutions is designed expressly to prevent the domination of one branch by any other, at least in principle, with each branch possessed of its own functions and internal controls. Regularly subjecting the Executive to a slashing-vituperative sort of grilling by the House and/or Senate could only result in two possible transformations of the current set up: either the Congress will become merely a parliamentary dumb show for rubber stamping any exercise of executive power; or a weakened Presidency will get reduced to the level of dummy Negotiator between opposed legislative factions. In either case,the Question Time ritual will only serve to dumb down and obfuscate "oversight" functions that have already been severely weakened by the increasing polarization and mediatization of our politics.

I too have watched C-Span's presentations with some interest. It should be noted that Hitchens finesses one of the main points about the Question Time spectacle that American viewers may not fully understand. The questions are submitted in advance and the reason Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair hired so many media consultants and handlers to advise them was precisely so they could suss out and "rehearse" any and every possible permutation of how the selected questions might "play out." Most of the questions are fluff and partisan nonsense to begin with. Mr. Blair and Mrs. Thatcher were always expert at simply side-stepping the obvious implications of any antagonistic questions by citing one or perhaps one and a half refutatory facts, carefully flagged for them in their performance binders by assiduous aides.

After watching these dog and pony shows a few times I began to find them kind of tiresome, to be honest. The questions and answers are deliberately designed to create "pinging" moments that just mask real issues.Such shows only further the "celebritization" of politics by favoring leaders who look good and polished on the telly by virtue of a certain "air of authority" or pithy charisma, never mind if those zippy factoids add up to useful policies, or not.

Of course maybe that's what Hitchens and the devotees of Question Time really have in mind. I guess some people think our politics needs to be even showier and more entertaining than it already self-consciously, idiotically is. Some people find anything deliberately "English" (as Hitchens himself so often, so laboriously strives to present) to be the paragon of witty or dramatic intensity -- they positively enjoy all the "huzza-ing" and the forced laughter and the members for North-Gladthwycke-on-Stoke crouching up and down for no apparent reason. What fun! Shouldn't politics be more fun, more occasions for Old Boy faux decorum and arch goofiness.

All of which is not my cup of tea, however; if I need stupid but gripping confrontational entertainment on TV, there's always the UFC. Our public political discussions, in fact, need to be less self-consciously, shrilly "dramatic", and more substantive. Showy but trivial, English-style "debates" (Hitchens' stock in trade) are the last thing we need more of.