If you were hoping for something interesting to happen last night you would have been very disappointment by what went down. Instead of being an open format debate like a town hall should be it was just another typical moderated debate. Brokaw took it upon himself to take the reigns and make the debate his own.
You got the feeling that Tom was trying to make the debate about him as much as possible. He intervened constantly and reminded the two men of the rules. Instead of a line of interesting questions from concerned voters we got more hand picked crap by an obviously bias moderated. Wake me up when it's over.
If you were hoping for another streamlined debate where the candidates got to repeat their campaign platforms you would have been very happy with last night's results. The American people were robbed of an opportunity to see the candidates answer questions they don't typically encounter. Instead we were presented with a complete snoozefest. Barack Obama comes on top of course because he was in his comfort zone. He didn't have to answer any questions out of the ordinary and it denied McCain the chance to be himself which he does best.
If you're not blindly in love with Obama you got to hear another case against his radical stances on the war and the economy. Having voted to raise taxes almost a 100 times you'd have to be foolish to believe he is going to start cutting them now. Having been a huge critic of the Iraq War since the beginning he now wants to invade Pakistan without any sort of approval from the people or the government.
The most interesting bit you should have gotten out of it was how catered the whole debate was to Obama. "I'm just hired help," said Tom. "You're doing great!" Said his Lord Obama. The plan seems to be to protect Obama as much as possible. Don't let people see him for his real self. The self that is unpredictable and dangerously untested.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaBiVJtZc00]