The Debate

I suppose, as any good blogger should, I have to weigh in on the debate last night. I noted earlier, along with Josh Marshall and the boys at Pandagon, and many others, that the key to this debate was how the post-debate spin would really decide the winner for the public eye. Look anywhere, Kerry won it. Whether the comment is that he won it slightly, or he scored a TKO, there was no doubt that Kerry presented himself as a clear, coherent, presidential candidate. Bush, on the other hand, came off as somewhat uninformed, dodgy, repetitive, and angry at times.

Much of all of this has already been said elsewhere, but I'm buoyant this morning. Kerry was clear last night. There was no vacillation. Sometimes I wondered if Bush had really prepared for the debate at all. He seemed lost on the U.S. North Korea policy and inflexible on Iraq. Check out the blogosphere, check out the news media outlets. Kerry did very, very well. It was a great opening salvo and a much more exciting debate than I expected. I may have more later, but I'm just sort of basking in this feeling that Kerry swung and landed some serious blows last night, without being harmed any further by the Bush attack dialogue.