From reading the diaries here, you would think that last night’s debate hurt Obama. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Okay, the majority of the "gotcha" questions were directed at Obama. But he handled them well, gave reasonable answers, did not lose his cool, and made the moderators look petty and amateurish by trying to redirect the debate to real issues.
But look at what happened to Hillary:
- She was backed into a corner on whether she thought Obama can beat McCain in the general. As an earlier diary pointed out, her "yes, yes, yes" response negated her only remaining rationale for staying in the race. It also makes her look dishonest for previously asserting that he could not.
- When asked about the Bosnia sniper fire story, she basically admitted that she had lied and gave no good excuse. In addition, she prefaced her answer with "If there is one thing I am not, it’s dumb", which seemed like a pretty "dumb" statement since the rest of her response failed to give any reasonable explanation for what she had said or why she wasn't dumb.
While I agree that ABC embarrassed itself with the shoddy debate, I think that, of everyone involved, Obama came out in the best shape.