The debate

As advertised, I wasn't at the helm during the debate, so I come to this much, much later than any blogger circa 2008 really should. But here goes: I winced through almost the whole debate. Not, of course, on substance, but substance almost never matters. As I saw it, the game was to determine which superficial tick each campaign will identify in its opponent as superficial evidence of some personality failing, and then to determine which of the two the press will decide is definitional. And as the debate entered the realm of foreign policy, I became convinced that this year's "sighing" was going to be Barack Obama's many failed attempts to interrupt John McCain.

The conservative press loves alpha males. The mainstream press says it loves bipartisanship, but at the end of the day thinks alpha male politics are winning politics. And what looks less alpha than trying (but failing) to interrupt your bullying opponent ? As such, I thought the debate would be remembered--first by the press and then by the public--as David Broder seems to have remembered it.

But, then again, I'm exquisitely out of touch with the American people, and in almost every poll I've seen--including those tracked in real time--they tended to respond poorly to McCain's unveiled hostility. I don't know if the Obama camp capitalized on these numbers behind the scenes, but by the next morning, the "tick"--what all talking heads were talking their heads off about--was McCain's refusal to look his opponent squarrrr in the eye, or to even really acknowledge his presence. In a reversal of standard course, the press took its cues from the public.

Fair enough. Can't say I'm too upset that McCain lost. But I wish he would've lost not on the basis of the fact that he repeated the line "What Senator Obama fails to understand" seven kerjillion times, but that in almost every instance McCain followed that line with some unrehearsed nonsense which betrayed his failure to understand the topic he is alleged to have mastered.

More on that later. For now, I suppose the takeaway from all this is that, whatever I read in the tea leaves of the Palin/Biden debate, the conventional wisdom will likely be the converse.