Happy Presidents Day. Unless you're a federal employee or you're at a shopping mall, you probably had no idea today was a holiday.

In case you missed it over the weekend -- and since it wasn't broadcast on television, you almost certainly did -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sent proxies to Boston for a debate on science policy and technology.

Saturday's debate, organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, touched upon topics ranging from the future of manned missions to the Moon and Mars to federal investment in nuclear energy and green technologies to combat climate change. The Clinton campaign sent science, technology and innovation adviser Thomas Kalil to do their debating, while the Obama camp sent technology, media and telecommunications adviser Alex Ross.

Since John McCain's science adviser cited scheduling conflicts and neither the Huckabee nor Paul campaigns responded to the AAAS invitation, the debate wasn't exactly contentious, given that Clinton and Obama share many of the same views on this issue.

Both Kalil and Ross stressed the need to need to restore scientific integrity to federal agencies following nearly eight years of suppressed research and political manipulation of science. Ross said Obama would be the first president to appoint a chief technology officer to ensure the safety of the government's information networks.

It sounds like debate attendees also heard much of the same rhetoric on green technologies that we've been hearing on the campaign trail. Kalil said Clinton would devote significantly more funding to Earth Sciences, while Ross spoke more about biofuels, a topic that suddenly is a bit more controversial.

We can't decide whether this event will help or hurt the chances for the proposed science debate in Philadelphia that we wrote about last week. Organizers are attempting to convince the major presidential contenders to show up for themselves and debate similar science issues on April 18, just four days before the Pennsylvania primary. According to CQ, no candidate has accepted the offer and Ross and Kalil were noncommittal about the prospect of the debate.