Obama Mccain Debates

Reassurance was slow in coming. A week before Election Day, polls showed Reagan and President Jimmy Carter in a virtual dead heat. That was the date o...

In the 1960s, the so-called "guru of media," Marshall McLuhan, dubbed television the "cool medium." He used the "hot-cool medium" distinction to expl...

McCain runs the gamut from rebellious teenager to grumpy old man without ever pausing at the stage of mature adult.

The real insights came in the revelations about the way each man thinks under pressure, and the way they interacted. The overall effect was exactly the opposite of what McCain hoped to achieve.

Obama's campaign appears to have staked its confidence on the surveys showing a lead among debate viewers -- which suggests that the Iraq issue did not hinder Obama's overall standing.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

The winner of the debate isn't the person who makes the best arguments. The winner of the debate is the person who moves votes to their side.

I'm glad that Senator Obama brought domestic issues to a foreign policy debate, because fixing "home" would alter our foreign relations.

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.

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.

Where McCain was unserious and petulant, Obama was forceful, sharp and, at times, magnanimous. Hell, McCain couldn't even look Obama in the eye. Not once.

I have to say, I did want to see more fire from Obama. I did want him to let the anger loose. I did want him to slap back at McCain's endless patronizing tone.

I think I feel the same as most Americans when I say I am beyond tired of hearing John McCain sell this war and passing it off as great leadership. To me, McCain proved himself as the stubborn one.

To listen to McCain speaking in tonight's debate was to be thrust back into a time warp, where al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein are plotting together, and America must go on a crusade to stomp out the infidels.

Will the candidates (and the moderator) note the difference between "tactical" success of the surge, versus the overall strategic goal of the surge, and whether that was a success?

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.