10:37: Final statements. McCain says Obama is unready. Obama says his father came from Kenya and loved America and its values. That basically encapsulates the debate. 10:34: More Bill Schneider: "McCain almost certainly misspoke when he said he wouldn't speak with Spain…I am not sure that's a fair thing for Obama to call him on." Here's McCain's foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann: "The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero (and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview." I agree that McCain misspoke. But then his adviser turned his verbal slip into official policy. That's actually worse. 10:28: "McCain is saying that if you meet without preconditions you are legitimizing them. Obama, on the other hand, said he would not impose preconditions, but he would insist on preparation. It's a very complicated argument." That's some crack political analysis from Bill Schneider. You know he gets paid a lot of money to write things like that. 10:20: This is a pretty traditional debate performance for Obama. Strong on substance. Few mistakes. Little in the way of killer instinct or decapitating lines. McCain, by contrast, is offering an uncommonly strong performance powered, as far as I can tell, by his raging contempt for Obama. He won't look at him. He's using "what Senator Obama doesn't understand" the way Joe Biden uses "ladies and gentlemen." His constant refrain is the places he's visited, leaders he's befriended, aging advisers and presidents he's known. Obama is conveying the fact that he thinks McCain wrong. But McCain is conveying the fact that he thinks Obama an unprepared lightweight. One of these is a stronger claim than the other. 10:19: Rather than snarkliveblogging, or metaliveblogging, Think Progress is doing some real time fact-checking. 10:15: Obama is answering too many of McCain's charges. McCain is smirking too much. He looks a bit like Bush in 2004. But McCain just went frontally at Obama, calling his approach "dangerous" and mocking what negotiations with Iran would look like. Obama didn't even answer the assault. And his answer on this next question seems more halting and unsure. It's a tougher question -- Eastern Bloc -- but it looks to me like Obama just got thrown off his game. 10:00: Bracelet wars. McCain tells a story about his bracelet, from the mother of a soldier who said "don't let my son's death be in vain." Obama tells of his bracelet, from a mother of a soldier who said "don't let other mothers go through what I'm going through." Maybe jewelry is not the right way to understand geopolitics? 9:59: I'm finding this hard to evaluate. In 2004, Kerry smoked Bush. This year, they're pretty evenly matched. McCain is more mawkish and somber. Obama is more commanding and informed. But these aren't speeches, where there are running themes or interlaced talking points. It's actually a discussion. An exchange. If you wanted to vote for either guy, you're probably confirmed in your opinion. If you're undecided, both seem fairly convincing. 9:58: Long exchange on Pakistan, where McCain accuses Obama of recklessly threatening attack. Obama responds: "Coming from you John, who threatened North Korea with extinction and sings songs about bombing Iran..." Nicely done. 9:50: McCain just compared Petraeus to Bin Laden. Man. Even MoveOn doesn't go that far. 9:44: After a back-and-forth on whether the question with Iraq is whether we should have gone in or whether we should have surged, Obama hits it on the head: "John likes to pretend the war began in 2007." Interestingly, Obama is MUCH more compelling on national security and foreign policy than he was in the domestic portion. McCain is agitated and shifting and giving awkward, digressive, angry answers. Obama seems confident and fluent and in control of this part of the discussion. 9:37: Obama gets in a clean shot here. McCain voted for most all Bush's budgets. How can he say he's spent his career fighting to cut spending? McCain returns with a monologue about how the American people know him, and he's not understood to be "Mr. Congeniality" in the Senate. All fair enough. But how does the combination of his colleagues thinking him a jerk and his press person being good at booking him on tv change those budget votes? Sadly, Obama doesn't press the point. 9:35: Health care debate! Also: Obama has to stop letting McCain say he's "cutting spending." When you're cutting tax revenues by hundreds of billions and cutting spending, in theory, by a few billion, you're not doing the thing you're supposed to be doing when you "cut spending," which is bringing the budget into balance. Rather you worsening the budget. It's the same as increasing spending. 9:34: Obama is wearing a flag pin. McCain is not. WHY DOES JOHN MCCAIN HATE AMERICA? 9:21: Pretty substantive exchange on tax cuts, earmark spending, and social policy. Not sure either of them particularly broke through, but the basic shape of the argument is McCain is hitting his reformist credentials and Obama is saying that McCain gives tax cuts and credits to corporations. McCain, incidentally, is doing well, at least thus far. He's calm and controlled and sounds knowledgeable. 9:12: Obama mentions that McCain said "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." Lehrer admonishes: "Say it to him." Apparently all attacks must be phrased in the form of the second person. "I'm determined to get you two to talk to each other," says Lehrer. "It's like a junior high dance," mutters my friend. 9:08: Obama opens on the financial crisis. "I can't think of a more important moment for us to be addressing the nation." Offers his five principles for the bailout. Goes directly at McCain, calling this the result of eight years of Republican policies supported by George Bush and John McCain. Hard shot so early in the debate. McCain, for his part, emphasizes the bipartisanship of the moment and the gravity of the occasion. "We're not at the beginning of the end. We're at the end of the beginning." Leaves Obama out of it. 9:00: Watching this on HD. Can't really bear seeing Brian Williams this defined. Why didn't McCain's people bar HD cameras from the event? He's going to look undead. 8:55: Chris Matthews suggests that it would be hard for Obama to capture "the racist vote." Yep. 8:48: The "reporting" of "pre-debate spin" is an odd concept. Reporting is supposed to uncover true statements of fact. This sort of reporting asks people in the campaign to tell the "reporter" something that isn't true, so they can then tell the audience. But they all seem so excited about it! "Here's ace reporter Howard Fineman to repeat some lies he was told by people in the campaign. Lay them on us, Howard!"
