Until the President responded, it wasn't even debate. It was DEM statements, and the way the media leaves them, the reader tended to take the DEM statements as statements of fact.
So answering the charges 1) causes a debate, that 2) represents an escalation that 3) is bitter (on the part of the responder).
One can watch the same sort of game play out in chatrooms and discussion forums. ;-)
I Sometimes wonder if Churchill knew about today's Demovratic Party...
Winston Churchill said of Neville Chamberlain after Munich:
"He had a choice between dishonor and war. He chose dishonor. Now he shall have war."