Dan Blaz joins David Brooks in putting a positive spin on last night's debate:
Barack Obama got the first real glimpse here Tuesday night of what he will face if he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. Between now and November, the most important question he will be forced to answer is: Who is Barack Obama?
That was the subtext of the relentless questioning he faced at the National Constitution Center here on Tuesday. For the first half of the debate, ABC's Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos threw one question after another at Obama that all shared the same underlying themes: what are your values and what do you believe?
For this reasoning to work, you need to assume that both Gibson and Stephanopoulos intentionally designed their questions to bring out Obama's values and beliefs. But we know that isn't the case. In fact, Stephanopoulos received his debate coaching from none other than Sean Hannity -- not exactly who you turn to for advice on honestly assessing a candidates' beliefs. But even worse, Balz expects us to believe this was a necessary, even positive, development in the campaign:
Some viewers took umbrage at the questions. After all, it took 45 minutes or more to get to real policy, which is where the discussion remained for the rest of the night. But after 20 previous debates, Obama and Clinton had plowed through much, though not all, of the policy ground they were asked to return to on Tuesday. What had not taken place was a prime-time airing of questions that some voters may have about Obama -- and that his Republican opponents sense will be the keys to winning or losing in November.
So in a Democratic primary, "some voters" wonder whether Obama is more of a patriot than Jeremiah Wright, wonder why Obama doesn't wear a flag lapel pin, and wonder why Obama hasn't firmly denounced every controversial figure that he has crossed paths with in his life, no matter how trivially, at the earliest possible moment? If such people exist, are they really on the fence on who to choose? .
--Mori Dinauer
