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Where is Irene Saez when you need her?

You probably never heard her name. But aficionados of Latin-American politics, of which I am one, are well aware of the prior Miss Universe from Venezuela to make big news in the world of politics prior to Alicia Machado.

Machado has been the center of attention on just about every TV and radio talk show I've heard or seen since the Monday presidential debate. That was when Hillary Clinton cited her as a victim of the Donald's diatribes when she gained a bit too much weight while serving as Miss Universe 21 years ago.

That brought to mind the example of Saez, who was named Miss Universe in 1981 and also parlayed that into a career of public service.

Saez used her fame to enter Venezuelan politics as a reformer. After getting elected mayor of a Caracas suburb, Saez enacted a number of reforms that made her nationally famous.

She entered the 1998 presidential race as a prohibitive favorite in the polls. Her main opponent was Hugo Chavez, who as an army officer led a coup in which he sent tanks to blow up the house of the president's mistress, hoping to catch the president in flagrante delicto.

Alas, the president was elsewhere. The coup was thwarted and Chavez was jailed. That didn't stop Chavez from running for president, however. Eventually he pulled ahead of Saez and ruled as dictator till his death in 2013.

But Saez almost saved her country. So that was something. As for Machado, I suspect her contribution to politics won't rise to that level. And I fear debate moderator Lester Holt deserves some of the blame.

Many of my fellow conservative commentators are of the opinion that Holt was biased in favor of Clinton. Meanwhile Trump advisor Chris Christie even termed Holt "an idiot."

He's not an idiot. He's something worse, a TV talking head. As such, he seemed incapable of focusing his questions on issues of substance.

I can think of dozens of questions on substantive issues that Holt should have asked the two, particularly in the area of foreign policy.

Should we or should we not demand that dictator Bashar Assad step down as part of any settlement of the Syria conflict?

Should we treat Russian President Vladimir Putin as an ally or an adversary there and elsewhere?

Why are we supplying the Saudis with the bombs they're using against the Houthi tribesmen in Yemen?

Granted, most Americans know even less about those countries than they know about Venezuela. But this was a chance to educate them.

It is instructive to read go back to the first televised debates to see how far we have fallen. Those were the Nixon-Kennedy debates of 1960.

I imagine few Americans at the time had a good idea where the islands of Quemoy and Matsu were. Yet the panelists in those debates asked numerous probing questions on how each candidate would react to a Chinese attack on them.

The candidates answered in what would be considered excruciatingly boring detail these days. The same was true of their responses to the other questions, all equally serious.

Beautiful women did not enter the discussion. We now know that Kennedy seems to have had some adventures in that area, but the news reporters on the panel steered away from them.

Holt's handling of the debate showed how far we have fallen. Instead of sticking to the issues, he went for typical TV fluff, such as that question to Trump about whether he really believed Clinton lacked "a presidential look."

That led directly to the comments about the former Miss Universe.

Holt let her roll out what amounted to an advertising campaign starring Machado as a woman whose life was ruined by Trump because he insisted that she keep to contract that required her to maintain the best figure in the universe.

We soon learned that Machado was no Saez. After her tenure as Miss Universe ended, she was accused of threatening the life of a judge who had jailed her boyfriend for attempted murder.

She went on to become a soap-opera star and then a few years ago, according to the Los Angeles Times, "moved to Los Angeles six months ago in hopes of jump-starting her English-language acting career."

Well, good for her. She seems to be quite a self-promoter. But if she had wanted to enter politics, she should have followed the example of her predecessor and run for office to bring Venezuela some badly needed reform.

I fear we're sinking to that level ourselves. Trump certainly deserves a lot of the blame for being such a bigmouth. But Holt's failure to keep the debate focused on serious issues provides an opening for the Donald to come back next time with some attacks based on Hillary Clinton's handling of women in her husband's various scandals.

But I think it's safe to say she brought up the wrong former Miss Universe.