I didn't get a chance to post this video from FOX's post debate wrap up, but I still think it's interesting. Krauthammer agreed with all of us and pretty much said that McCain looked like the old man who didn't get his morning newspaper during the last debate Wednesday night. He gave the decision of the third and final debate to Obama because he thought McCain had a weird way of delivering a blow and never following up with it while Obama was just too cool. And he made this candid observation about McCain's split screen performance. Even Brit Hume thought McCain looked "peculiar."

Hume: And as looking at the screen we were kind of struck here by the contrasts and the facial expressions of the two cont4estants as you will when they were not talking. Obama at times seemed to smile and amused while he was listening to some of Sen. McCain's charges. Sen. McCain in the meantime listened to what Sen Obama said he had a somewhat peculiar expression on his face, at least it struck me that way. He looked, I don't know, what did you think?

Krauthammer: I thought he looked stern, he once raised his eyebrows and lowered them rapidly which looked extremely odd (Hume laughs) and Obama as usual was remarkably unruffled. You could have had a grenade go off in the back of the room and Obama would have smoothly spoken right through it and that's his gift. He's a man of remarkable self containment and even on Palin, he was given an opening, did you see his discipline on Palin? He didn't say a single word attacking her knowing it could only alienate a lot of people and wouldn't have advanced his cause.

From Countdown, Oct. Oct. 16, 2008:

OLBERMANN: And in the frequency with which he used them on the campaign trail, it should be no surprised that some of John McCain's worse most obvious canards about used things about Barack Obama ended up in the debate last night.

Our fourth story on the Countdown: Tonight, a partial inventory of McCain misspeaks from debate number 49.

(full transcript below the fold)

Continue reading »

McCain obviously practiced his line about not being Bush and Obama should have run four years ago against him all week and still Obama easily brushed it aside.

McCain: Yes. Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago. I'm going to give a new direction to this economy in this country.

Weirdly enough, the media have focused on this line, ignoring the fact that Obama provided the perfect retort:

FD08

Obama: The notion that I voted for a tax increase for people making $42,000 a year has been disputed by everybody who has looked at this claim that Senator McCain keeps on making. Even Fox News disputes it, and that doesn't happen very often when it comes to accusations about me. So the fact of the matter is, is that if I occasionally have mistaken your policies for George Bush's policies it's because on the core economic issues that matter to the American people on tax policy, on energy policy, on spending priorities, you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush.

Now, you have shown independence, commendable independence on some key issues like torture, for example, and I give you enormous credit for that. But when it comes to economic policies, essentially what you're proposing is eight more years of the same thing. And it hasn't worked. I think the American people understand it hasn't worked, we need to move in a new direction.

[DN, armchair quarterbacking: Obama might also have pointed out: "John, if you really wanted to reform George Bush's policies, as you now claim, perhaps you should have run against him four years ago."]

UPDATE: John Amato: All day on CNN I only heard McCain's I'm not Bush statement and no response from Obama. They sure are desperate for a sound byte. Obama's response neutralized McCain completely.

Frank Luntz: Early in the debate these people thought McCain was doing better, by the end of the debate Obama seemed to finish better. Brit.

Brit Hume: Question -- you said that none of the people came in there for Obama, may I take it that that's because they were undecided or because they were for McCain?

Luntz: No, they were undecided, we got 23 undecided voters. Brit, I chewed them out to make sure they were undecided. Did anyone switch your position tonight? We have one person... four people. Who did you go to?

Undecided voter #1: I lean more toward Obama.

Undecided voter #2: Obama.

Undecided voter #3: Obama.

Undecided voter #4: Obama.

Luntz: This is a good night for Barack Obama.

Barack Obama was as sharp as ever tonight, so when John McCain recited his "Obama doesn't understand..." line from the first debate, Obama retorted with the line of the night.

Obama: Well, you know, Sen. McCain, in the last debate and today, again, suggested that I don't understand. It's true. There are some things I don't understand.

I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us.

That was Sen. McCain's judgment and it was the wrong judgment.

When Sen. McCain was cheerleading the president to go into Iraq, he suggested it was going to be quick and easy, we'd be greeted as liberators.

That was the wrong judgment, and it's been costly to us.