My debate scorecard

It's not quite over yet, but I wanted to render a judgment not influenced by the cable commentariat.

No knockout, but I score it a solid win for McCain on points. He is winning nearly every exchange by outshining Obama on experience and depth of knowledge. He also has done a good job, despite the format, of communicating a theme: Obama's naivete and inability to "understand" certain things.

It's also apparent that Obama came into the debate hoping to provoke some kind of intemperate remark from McCain. He didn't succeed in that, nor in zinging McCain with any tough barbs.

Beyond that, Obama's objective seems to be simply to establish his credibility as a potential commander in chief. I think he's succeeded in appearing presidential, so it was a good night for him in that sense. But I think his supporters are going to wonder why he was unable to lay a glove on McCain.

From a purely debate standpoint, Obama erred in failing to get McCain to explain his initial decision to support the war in Iraq. McCain ducked that issue by pointing out that the next president would have to deal with getting troops out of Iraq, not in. But then later he went back and recited his judgment in dealing with military deployment issues in Beirut, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and other trouble spots. If McCain can cite his judgment in all those other instances, why shouldn't he have been forced to answer for the 2003 Iraq war vote?

Another example: McCain on several occasions went out of his way to separate himself from the Bush administration. Obama, however, didn't do much to tie McCain to Bush in the first instance.

I also think Jim Lehrer was a winner tonight. There were no "gotcha" questions, no attempts to steal the show. He pretty much teed up subjects and let the candidates talk about them. It's a refreshing and logical approach.