M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I: a McCain / Obama liveblog

5:54 PST
Weather: Sunny, with children.
Mood: Pensive.
CBS Website: up and running.
Backup plan: KPLU, ca. 88.5
Perspective: Seventh-year debate coach and English teacher analyzes election rhetoric, body language, argumentation, and--this is far too ambitious, I now realize.

6:01
Jim Lehrer notes that the debate will be divided up into 9-minute segments, with 2-minute primary responses. Lehrer has selected the questions personally, and will hand them on a platter to the candidates, served up with hot, steaming platitudes.

6:02
Lehrer quotes Eisenhower on the relationship between the economy and the military to kickstart things. Wasn't he the guy who coined the phrase "Military-industrial complex?"

6:03
First question to Obama. Wall Street / Main Street is a nice rhetorical dig; McCain probably wishes he could've gotten there first. 1:30 in, and Obama's already going after his presumed opponent, President Bush.

6:05
McCain cribs the "Wall Street / Main Street" line. Knew it was coming.

6:06
McCain is looking at Lehrer; Obama directly into the camera. Obama's playing better on the television so far. (Somebody get McCain a glass of water, too.)

6:08
McCain's use of the Eisenhower anecdote comes across as sincere and sharp. Here comes the split screen.

This "talking to each other" thing that Lehrer is "determined" to achieve: profoundly weird, at least to this debate coach. We train debaters to not look directly at their opponents.

6:12
Okay, guys. Enough with the "Main Street" metonymy.

6:14
McCain calls earmarks "evil." Studying bear DNA isn't just impractical, it's diabolical!

6:15
McCain strikes closest first, going after Obama's earmarking. Obama's response is a deflection: sure, I've earmarked, but in a saintly way==no special interests--and McCain's tax plan is $300 billion. (Next to the bailout, though, even that seems small.) McCain comes right back, saying that $18 billion "may not be that much to Obama," but Main Street--that's you and me, right?--want to elect a Sheriff.

6:18
"Let's be clear" is Obama's pet phrase, in the same way that McCain loves "My friends."

6:19
McCain touts Ireland as a development haven? And here comes "my friends."

6:22
McCain scores the best adjective: "festooned," when describing an energy bill. Try all you want, Senator Obama, but you're not going to beat "festooned."

6:24
We're going to have to start giving these guys their own internet connections so they can look up the things they're asking us to look up. FactCheck is going to have a heyday tonight.

6:26
"It's hard to reach across the aisle that far too the left." McCain reaches out to the base; Obama smiles.

6:29
Every time McCain or Obama cites a number smaller than $700 billion--16, 15, any -teen billion--it seems tiny. "A billion here, a billion there," someone once said.

6:31
A delightful mixed metaphor from Obama: "The problem with a spending freeze, is you're using a hatchet when you need a scalpel."

6:33
"...the way you rule the country..." Lehrer's phrasing, referring to the changes in leadership a massive bailout might bring to either candidate, reflects the current conception of the chief-executive-as-king.

6:36
Obama goes after McCain's purported penny-pinching; McCain responds with a second go at the "Miss Congeniality" line. Plus, one good "maverick" begets another: Palin, who, though unnamed, apparently fits the appellation.

6:39
The Iraq War enters the building.

6:44
Who was wronger? Obama on the surge, or McCain on the entire conflict? Ouch: "Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy."

6:48
Tough to say who's winning this debate, to be quite honest. Each is landing a punch or two, but no one has a knockout yet. Stylistically, Obama isn't stuttering as much as he did back against Hillary Clinton, and McCain seems perkier than he was in the GOP debates.

6:52
McCain, on public military threats: "You don't do that--you don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you do things."

6:54
Who is McCain squinting at?

6:55
Obama brings up McCain's choice in mid-60s surfer rock.

6:58
The bracelet battle. Is this gravitas or severe tackiness? Honestly, I think I might be becoming too cynical.

7:01
It's also a battle of condescension. Obama keeps calling McCain "John," and McCain keeps listing things "Senator Obama doesn't understand."

7:04
Proof that McCain isn't Bush III: he lists the French as potential allies in a "league of democracies."

7:06
I've lost count of the times Obama has declared, "Senator McCain is absolutely right," before immediately dispatching another of McCain's suggestions.

7:11
"What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand..." Obama needs to come right back with a classic: "There you go again..."

7:14
Actual Kissinger quote:

KISSINGER: Well, I am in favor of negotiating with Iran. And one utility of negotiation is to put before Iran our vision of a Middle East, of a stable Middle East, and our notion on nuclear proliferation at a high enough level so that they have to study it. And, therefore, I actually have preferred doing it at the secretary of state level so that we -- we know we're dealing with authentic...

SESNO: Put at a very high level right out of the box?

KISSINGER: Initially, yes. And I always believed that the best way to begin a negotiation is to tell the other side exactly what you have in mind and what you are -- what the outcome is that you're trying to achieve so that they have something that they can react to.

7:17
One more thing Obama, in his naivete, doesn't understand: that Putin wears KGB contact lenses.

7:21
Some say that Obama doesn't have to win this to win--he just has to hold his own. So far, nothing's really stumped him. McCain has shown some weirdness--squinting, crazy blinking, and an insistence on pet phrases--so in a relatively equal pitched battle of arguments, a draw is a loss.

7:25
Lehrer ends on an interesting question: what's the likelihood of another 9/11?

7:29
Which is just one more opportunity, ultimately, for McCain to talk about what Obama doesn't understand.

So, the debate boils down to this:
1. McCain: Obama is naive.
2. Obama: McCain, you're getting the facts wrong.

7:35
McCain closes with an appeal to veterans based on his experience; Obama closes with a call to a renewed global presence, America as a "beacon on a hill."

I'm calling this a tie, which, because of Obama's relative inexperience, counts as a win.

7:39
Bob Schieffer says exactly what I did, including the lack of a "knockout," and that "Obama held his own." Thanks for visiting, Bob.

7:43
And then there was Bob Barr.

8:37
Dave Weigel writes,

If your drinking game code words were "doesn't understand," please see a doctor.

I'm sure it's not the first, or last, time McCain's driving folks to drink.

9:16
The debate is barely over, and the factcheckers have already descended. McCain appears to be penalized the most for running out-of-bounds with the ball. Even the Eisenhower anecdote (which was delivered quite well) was a stretch.

Sigh.