9:40 PM … Continuing reasonableness.
9:55 PM … Pretty good answer from Obama on tax policy. Debates are definitely not his best medium. He’s occasionally halting and not as fluid as he is in a set-piece speech. But that was a pretty strong argument about the necessity of rolling back the Bush tax breaks.
9:58 PM … Appreciating the general sidelining of Russert.
9:59 PM … Edwards grandstands a bit on his first question but ends up asking a pretty good one. Obama so-so so far in answering.
10:01 PM … Oddly disorganized for a prestige news dude.
10:03 PM … Weird how much Hillary took a pass on the question question. She asked one but it was, “Barack, will you work with me on ending the Iraq War.” Not exactly intended to make him squirm.
10:05 PM … Russert: “I have something to say, me, me, me” … Very sad. Obama starts to smack him down. Now Hillary may need to smack him down too. The true unity of the Democratic party reveals itself: knowledge in their hearts that Russert is the true enemy. Even Edwards now tries to get in and kick Russert’s butt a bit but he’s pretty wiped out by the time Edwards gets to him.
10:08 PM … Williams confiscates Obama’s question.
10:08 PM … I guess the key with Russert is that moment where he comes in to interject, often with the significantly raised pencil, with this look on his face of deep insider knowledge that he’s divined the key point of contradiction that will pry the candidate open like a soft peanut. Only in this case, there are more of them up there than him and he’s not in charge of the camera so they smack him around for a few minutes.
