In analysis provided by Newsbusters, a conservative media watchdog, the Republican debate on CNN was basically a squabble.

The three CNN moderators asked 55 questions trying to get the Republicans to criticize each other.

That was 74% of all the questions CNN proposed ... 74%.

Here's a sample: 

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: “Senator Cruz, Governor Kasich says that anyone who is promising to rip up the Iran deal on day one, as you have promised to do, is, quote, ‘inexperienced,’ and, quote, ‘playing to a crowd.’ Respond to Governor Kasich, please.”

((EDIT))

TAPPER (to Carly Fiorina): “In an interview last week in Rolling Stone magazine, Donald Trump said the following about you. Quote, "Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?  Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?’"

It was obvious that Jake Tapper and his cohorts wanted to provoke the Republicans to attack each other.

And to some extent that happened.

Tonight, do you expect the CNN interrogators to do the same thing with the Democrats?

I don't.  Already we are hearing that Anderson Cooper and his cohorts are not that much interested in confrontation.

But if CNN does not handle the Democratic debate the same way it did with the Republicans, that will become a news story in itself.

Now there are plenty of differences between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the two top poll people.

Sanders is off-the-chart left and is running a one-trick pony campaign.

The barnburner is telling folks our capitalistic system is rigged and the rich are taking advantage of everyone else.

That's what Bernie has.  That's it.

Hillary Clinton is a policy person.  The problem is, the policies of the Democratic Party and President Obama are not working.

And if CNN wanted to, they could go to town on that, as 60 Minutes did on Sunday.

But again, I don't really expect many questions about President Obama.  I could be wrong.

The other Democratic candidates have absolutely no chance whatsoever and they will slow down the debate, which, most likely, will not be scintillating anyway.

About the only thing that could make the two-hour debate interesting is if the moderators really challenged the Democratic contenders - Hillary Clinton on the email deal and her flip-flopping; Bernie Sanders on punitive taxation and socialism in general.

But again with CNN's liberal profile, you don't really expect that will happen.

One final thing, it's interesting that Fox News is often branded as a Republican-leaning network.

But if you watched the Republican Debate on FNC, that was one tough forum.

So we'll see tonight whether CNN can rise to the occasion with tough questions and holding the candidates accountable for specific answers.

We'll see.

And that's the memo.