Obama Mccain Debate Mississippi

This week Congress did the one thing I never would have expected: the members of Congress lived up to their responsibilities. In both houses, in both parties.

Good evening everyone! What on earth are we doing tonight? Seriously? Wasn't this stuff suspended? What is going on? Honestly! Today was my day ...

My feeling is that the Couric interview might have done for McCain what the first Nixon-Kennedy debate did for Nixon in 1960 -- a true watershed moment.

McCain appeared bothered by the sheer audacity of this newcomer in thinking he had the standing to question any of his actions or opinions.

McCain would want us all to be going into the final month of the campaign having serious doubts about Obama. Instead it is McCain's actions that are causing doubts to rise about McCain's own candidacy.

I worried that the American public had been so seduced over the past eight years by self-serving stories -- rather than practical realities -- that the storyteller would always win the day.

Not since Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy has there been a starker contrast between the two candidates on stage. Yet, even with his five o'clock shadow, Nixon looked better than McCain.

A key moment in the debate, when Obama called McCain out on Iraq: Obama: So John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about th...

There was a moment, when the debate ended and the wives came up on stage, where I actually knew, or thought I knew, who had won. I'm sorry to say it, but it was John McCain.

McCain has never supported talks with Iran at the Secretary of State level. So either McCain has massively shifted positions on Iran or he is completely misrepresenting his position on Iran.

As a debate tactic, McCain's behavior was understandable, and a classic Karl Rove characteristic. Take your weakness and make it a strength. Take your opponent's strength and make it a weakness.

Obama won on key issues demonstrating that our foreign policy is more than just about the surge. McCain frequently reverted back to clichés calling his opponent naïve and lacking judgment.

As the spin of Friday night's debate settled in and both sides staked a claim to victory, one media narrative began to take hold: while Obama may have...

Obama's goal tonight was to simply become an equal to the "legendary" foreign policy man John McCain. He accomplished that, while showing unending patience with his opponent.

***UPDATED 9/27*** A focus group of 45 voters with an "unmistakenly Republican tilt" believed that Obama won the night handily: [B]y a 38 to 27 perc...

Nora Ephron: Ringside: There was a moment, when the debate ended and the wives came up on stage, where I actually knew, or thought I knew, who had wo...

Ironically, the fact that Obama granted his opponent the courtesy of pointing out the places where they agree is the very quality of leadership that McCain continues to falsely claim as his own.

It was a good night for Obama because, when 83 percent of the country believe we are on the wrong track, standing toe-to-toe with McCain on foreign policy is all you need to do. And Obama clearly did that.

The result tonight was another frustrating piece of American media that is at once far too polite, and at the same time, dismissive of an American public's need to know anything beyond jingoistic self-aggrandizement.

This debate underscored the central question that each of us must ask ourselves before choosing our next president: Will our children and our children's children fare better than us?

Watch the presidential debate live here: Live TV by Ustream...

Obama did not win this debate. He didn't lose it either. But McCain was given far too much leeway in my opinion without counterpunching, which might reinforce the trope that Democrats don't know how to fight.

McCain, to be fair, showed some of his knowledge in a good way. But he's too old, he's from the 20th century, the country doesn't need him now.