That’s some fine cherrypicking Michael. I’ve read the blogosphere too, and the consensus is more that the "debate" was a complete waste of time, dedicated to trying to get both candidates, but especially Obama, into gotcha issues. They asked him about flag pins for crying out loud. Clearly this is the most important issue of the day; not the Economy, not Iraq, but flag pins.

Oh to be sure, the consensus is that Obama had a bad performance, but your conclusion that "he’s not ready for prime time" is laughable, at best. He’s been on prime time plenty of times before this and done just fine. He did not do fine this time, no doubt, but to conclude from one performance that he’s simply not worthy sounds again like wishful thinking.

No the real loser is ABC, who was given a chance to seriously ask about issues and passed it up in favor of sensationalism.

That’s some fine cherrypicking Michael. I’ve read the blogosphere too, and the consensus is more that the "debate" was a complete waste of time,

no doubt.  I did not expect anything else.

Most concensous’s I’ve read on it so far was that indeed ABC was the looser with pathetic moderators.

Conclusion: Obama’s not read for prime time.

And HRC is?  Please she can’t even take any heat without Bill stepping in for her.

For all those supporting Hillary, a reminder from 2002:"I am hundred percent behind my president"HRC.Thats all there is to make the right choice.

"Andrew. If you’re a European conservative, like I am, how in the world can you just try to ignore this side of Obama? It doesn’t make sense."
Michael, this is exactly what Interested and I keep asking you about Hillary Clinton. If you could just once answer why you feel her policy proposals are substantially different than Obama’s in terms of redistribution of wealth, high taxation, and a collectivist "socialist lite" mentality, then we’ll quit badgering you about it. If you’re not able to do that, then I don’t think you have any business questioning why Andrew Sullivan ignores this side of Obama.

"I’ve read the blogosphere too, and the consensus is more that the "debate" was a complete waste of time"
What have you read?
Every Obama supporter and "progressive" try and spin this for Obama.  That is what I have read.
I will give you that those questions were a waste of time.
You know what else is a waste of time.
Friendly media throwing softball questions which are quickly followed by talking points that are never questioned.
What is your idea of a proper debate?
Question after question relating to the level of which Bush sucks!
Yes, I agree Bush sucks, there that’s solved.

Now let us talk about your policies Senator.
How protectionist are you?
Do you plan to wall this Country up in an autarky, is that your plan?  Or are you just pandering to the rednecks in PA?
Well, what is it? 
Who are you lying to, your union backers or those people in San Francisco?
Beacause I really do not care about "bittergate", but your words do tell me that your policies seem to change depending on the audience and opinion polls.
You are supposed to represent "change" something "new."
To me you sound like every other politician I’ve heard over the past years promising something to everyone.
Whatever wins votes, right!
Eventually some of those promises will have to be broken, and I, for one, would like to know what you truly believe.
Because eventually your policies are going to screw someone, and I would like to know if my family will be included in that set.
I can take being mildly screwed for the good of the Country.
In fact, I believe we all need to be screwed to some extent for the good of the Country.
However, experience has taught me that your affection for a managed economy has a tendency to royally screw some people that are not even really that wealthy.
So I would like to know, what are your actual trade policies?
Because my family has a small business that actually exports goods from this Country.  
Personally, I have a cushy university job and will probably benefit from your "stated" policies. 
However, my father, uncle, and cousins involved in that small business seem to be quite concerned about your stance on trade. 
Could you blame them?
I have these student loans to pay back so I can’t feasibly support them all.  Graduate degrees are expensive, as you know, and I haven’t been able to find anyone willing to publish my book (just kidding.)
But now that I think about it, why haven’t you promised to forgive my student loan debt?  Am I chopped liver, can no one pander to me?  Or have you already promised that? I have to look that up.
Because I think I would screw the family for that, just don’t tell them.  
God I’m a hypocrite, but aren’t we all.
Politics!
I’m moving to Antarctica to live under the benevolent Penguin overlords.  Free fish for everyone, how can you beat that?

I didn’t see the debate so I can’t comment on its substantce.  But if ABC was in attack mode, it’s unsurprising.  Not so long ago, NBC, led by Tim Russert, led the charge against frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the famed illegal driver’s license debate.  This was at a time when HRC appeared to be inevitable.  It was as though Russert alone assumed the mantle of Hillary Killer.  In fact, it was the turning point of HRC’s campaign- she’s been fighting for her life ever since.  Somewhere in their souls, network moderators believe that their job is to nail the frontrunner- period.

I watched the debate, and must say that I thought exactly as Marc Ambinder and Andrew Sullivan put it (per Michael’s quotes from them). A tired and shaken Obama. Clinton, on the contrary, came across as more collected, more dilligent, and more politically savvy, hence probably having better chances against McCain. Acyual policy differences or similarities between Obama and Clinton not withstanding, I found Obama very lacking in foreign policy and economy particularly. I am not saying this necessarily with respect to substance; it is just that Obama didn’t strike me as the great communicator he is made out to be. He seems to want frustrated people to cling to hope. If he wins and can’t deliver, will we have had a ‘hopegate’ in our hands?

It also seems that the only thing that Obama supporters have to fall back on is to criticize ABC and the moderators. No one, IOW seems to be saying that Obama did well, only that he didn’t do well because of the questions he was asked.

The only way this line of defense works in his favor is that it rallies certain people to him; these are the people who agree with Obama’s point that we’re being distracted from the real issues. The problem is that this is a limited number of people, who incidentally were already firmly in Obama’s camp.

The rest of the voters, the ones who actually need to be persuaded, and the superdelegates who are looking for the best way to resolve the standoff and have a chance to win in Nov, see that argument working against Obama instead of for him. It’s essentially proving Clinton’s argument, that he’s not able to withstand the political system as it currently exists in American (like it or not.)

Obama showed his worse side in full force, as did Clinton. Somehow, I prefer a man who buckles and loses in the face of constructed and intense gotcha journalism than a woman who’ll use it to beat up on an opponent she can’t defeat without ruining her party and it’s chances.

This sort of setting is not representative of what a president has to face. At least, it isn’t representative of what a president should be expected to face.

If I use a poor debate performance akin to what we have here agaisnt McCain or Clinton then feel free to whip up this post and mock my hipocrisy - I would deserve no less.

Nihat, pal, at least he did not approve the unnecesary war unlike Clinton. There it goes to Obama’s lack of foreign policy argument which is if I am to compare these two, I’d certainly go along with the one who predicted what 1/3th of Americans predicted back then. I’d expect the person in the White House to be as clever as 1/3th of the country at the very least. Her backing the president who she now bashes in any occasion is something that I cant forget when millions were marching, when the common sense and true intelligence was exactly the other way around. She should have known better. Period. We also knew what we now know. There is no base saying "Had I known it". If everyone knew it then there was no reason for any decision making was there? Excuse is sillier and inexcusable than the act.

The only way this line of defense works in his favor is that it rallies certain people to him; these are the people who agree with Obama’s point that we’re being distracted from the real issues. The problem is that this is a limited number of people, who incidentally were already firmly in Obama’s camp.

I didn’t see the debate last night, but from what I’ve read about it so far, I think Obama is going to benefit enormously from Charlie Gibson’s and George Stephanopoulos’s lack of professionalism and basically total abdication of journalistic responsibility.

I’m sure it’s true that many people who are defending Obama today were already supporters, but I don’t think one has to be an Obama supporter to recognize that ABC News put on an absolutely shameless, disgraceful performance (and it *was* a performance). Who wouldn’t agree with Obama that 90 minutes of relentless questioning about flag pins, Obama’s neighbor who was in the Weatherman Underground 40 years ago, Jeremiah Wright, and bitter/cling, distracts from the real issues? I mean, no one would disagree with that, unless you think there is someone out there who thinks it’s more important to ask a presidential candidate how he feels about flag pins than to ask his (and her) position on issues like the Iraq policy, the deepening recession, health care, unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, the education of our children, etc. If there IS anyone out there who is more interested in hearing answers to questions about flag pins than recession and war, those people are idiots and not worth our time.

From what you read on blogs that support Obama, which pretty much proves my point, Kathy.

Remind me, did you complain about the unprofessionalism of the journalists who hounded the GOP candidates about evolution?

Why CStanley? I want to know how they would dance around it. I mean the GOP candidates about evolution, but thats not the discussion point here or is it CStanley? Is your purpose to be bashing about the professionalism of the journalists or implicitly attack Obama for someting that was not in his control, i.e., the questions in that debate. If you wanna talk about it, I’d suggest you to start with my earlier blog (#10) .

CS I think your stepping on your own toes. You seem to be agreeing that often our political process doesn’t focus on real issues often enough, which would mean on that point at least, you agree with Obama. This refutes your idea that this behavior by ABC can only be ‘preaching to the choir’ moment for the Obama camp. You might still choose not to vote for him for his stances on those real issues, but I think your a bit to dismissive of his message.

If Obama is aggressive enough on this issue of substance over pins and name calling, than it might end up being a net win for him even though he handled the debate itself poorly.

I think that Kevin and Judas are both misinterpreting my comment to Kathy. That wasn’t meant as a complaint about the way the media handled GOP questioning- I was getting to her hypocrisy if she only thinks this sort of questioning is unprofessional when it’s done to Democrats (or of course, if there’s some rationalization about why my example is somehow "different".)

And that said, I’ll also point out that in amba’s thread, I stated that I’m somewhat of two minds about these sorts of questions. Sometimes there is too much focus on the side issues- and I feel that way toward GOP and Dem candidates- yet overall I don’t think that it’s completely wrong either.

My point here is that the ONLY defense that is coming up for Obama is to change the subject to that of the media’s performance- and that certainly doesn’t indicate that he performed well. Personally I felt there was too much time given to these issues- but I don’t feel those questions should have been excluded either, just pared down in the overall amount of time given to them.

cfpete, I think your right to be skeptical about Obama’s NAFTA stance, however I think your wrong if you are insinuating that Obama is for a heavily managed economy.

Take his reaction to the housing morgage crisis vs Sen. Clinton’s. He does have some immediate aid (even McCain did). However, his approach to the long term problems seems much more sensible and free-market based than Sen. Clinton’s. Clinton said basically, ‘well, forclosures are the problem, so lets stop forclosures’ which exactly the type of short-sighted managed economic policies which show the worst side of the Democratic party. Obama’s recommendations were much more in line with the views of wall-street. Streamline regulation, and expand regulation in some areas to cover up holes. The logic of the expansion is pretty undeniable, if you borrow money from the government, the government should have the right to set some terms. Here the government is acting just like any other player in a free market which set terms and conditions for it’s own money, and doesn’t prevent anyone from doing as the wish if they abstain from public money.

McCain’s solution was just as bad as Clinton’s; just as short sighted and just as stereotypical for his party. He said we needed to remove the barriers to capital flow. Basically, the ‘less regulation = better economy’ meme which is the knee jerk reaction of conservatives. It’s true, that in the short run that would help the recession, however analysis of the mortgage crisis from nearly every viewpoint agrees that a major contributor was the excessive lending by a few parties. This is exactly the type of behavior you get when there is not enough enforced transparency or reasonable regulation.

If you chief concern is who will interact with the domestic economy better then Obama is the clear winner. If instead you are more concerned with our place in the global economy than it depends on which Obama you think is telling the truth.

I didn’t think Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos dwelt unwarrentedly long on any one subject. To be frank, I don’t know what would have satisfied folks complaining of ABC here. They even gave voice to a voter Tom who said to Clinton that she lost his vote because of her Tuzla-landing-under-sniper-fire story; Clinton responded as best as she could, and offered an unmangled apology. Obama, when confronted with the Wright issue, he disowned Wright in one sentence, and spared Wright’s person but disowned his fiery utterings in the other. Looked pretty mangled to me.

Anyway, JP, my friend, I am not going to be voting, so my cursory preference of Clinton over Obama can’t be taken too seriously. Please relax. (Also, you might find this news from today’s Turkish daily Radikal interesting. One day, they may have to stop forcing fathers to declare their newborn babies’ religion… who knows?)

Ok, CS, I think I get your stance more clearly now, and I somewhat agree, maybe even completely agree. There’s no reason to bury the Wright controversy or his comments made in SF (However the Pin thing is just ridiculous).

Determining if the Wright controversy or the ‘cling’ remark are worthwhile depends heavily on how they are covered. A substantive debate could have been built out of either. For the Wright controversy, how much bad do you accept along with the good? This has deep implications for both bi-partisan co-operation, where it is certainly necessary to swallow your tongue every once and awhile about tangential issues, and foreign policy where we must still live and act in a complex landscape of grays. These somewhat hidden connections are exactly why these issues carry meaning, and the job of a good journalist is to help those connection be brought to light. However that is not what happened, nor what normally happens. Instead the issues are dealt with superficially, ‘who said what’, and ‘what people fee about what was said’, ‘what i meant to say’ blah blah blah repeated ad nauseum.

I still do contend that dissatisfaction with this type of superficiality has a wide spread resonance in the electorate, and probably even within you.

Yes, I agree with you about how these things are covered. As far as media dissatisfaction resonating, though, it just doesn’t have the specific effect of making me rally to a candidate. I’ve never understood why people react that way- as though when a candidate is treated harshly or unfairly, or the media handles a flap about him/her in a superficial way, that people would be then more likely to vote for the person. My vote goes to the person that I think is the best candidate, and if the environment in which they campaign is harsh, then I expect them to rise to the occasion. No one gets sympathy votes from me, I guess.