Spare us the Keith Olbermann analysis.

Face it, Obama sucks at debates. Calling it "tabloid" style is pure network competition hype (or did you not notice that Keith Olbermann works for NBC & the debates were sponsored by ABC?)

It was the first debate I watched in it's entirety. It was the first debate since February, and a lot has happened since then on the campaign trail, and I wanted to see how both candidates addressed those things.

The Wright story IS relevant and WILL be in the general election. When a candidate says "this man is my spiritual mentor" they have put that mentor front and center as part of their campaign, and therefore legitimized scrutiny of them. That isn't "tabloid journalism" and to call it that is not only disingenuous and devious, but blatantly obvious partisanship.

I agreed with Howard Fineman's assessment that there will always be substantive issues that don't get coverage during a debate because of time limits, and because the issues of the nanosecond (we are talking American attention spans here) will always dominate. I also agreed with his assessment that this was one of the more substantive debates on the issues that we have seen. Sad as that truly is, that is the nature of the American journalism (spit) beast.

The flag pin was a cheap shot, but Obama laid quite a few cheap shots himself, so I considered that pretty much a draw.

When you aren't objective Azizi, it really shows.