Presidential Debate #1 in the books

UPDATE: If you're interested enough in the debates to read the following post, might I suggest first taking a look at Statler and Waldorf's take? :)

In years past, I've pretty much steered clear of election-year debates, since I could glean enough of the character of candidates through other means to make a worthwhile decision. This time around, between surrogate talking heads and more-questionable-than-usual ads, and with the whole "economic crisis" fun in play, I figured it might be worth a look. It was much as I expected, including, sadly, both candidates' inability to stay on the question put to them by the moderator. Some of the bits I found worthwhile include:

• Happily, Obama's not dead-set against nuclear power.
• Sadly, McCain does seem to be focused hard on Iraq these days, to the detriment of other problem areas in the world (like Afghanistan)... in spite of his self-touted years of international crisis experience.
• While Obama's willing to say outright that he'd take on targets within Pakistan if need be, McCain just can't make that leap of... honesty? I mean, yes, it's good strategy to stay mum about your intentions, then spank the enemy when they're not looking... but the flip side of that coin is announcing your intentions, then not following through fully, if at all. In this case, what would Pakistan do... move more troops to the area in question to defend against an attack, and possibly catch raiders headed into Afghanistan before they caused problems, or on their way back... or openly support the Taliban? Either would be an improvement, of sorts, over "yes, we'll take your money to fight the Taliban, then not do so" (and yes, I know, this is an oversimplification, and there is public opinion among Pakistan's people to consider (what there is left after supporting Musharraf for so long, at any rate), but looking at different angles to solve problems in times of trouble isn't necessarily a Bad Thing).
• On the behavior/body language front, the moderator tried to get the debaters looking and talking to each other... and, after some obvious reluctance, Obama gave it a go, while McCain seemed dead set on not acknowledging Obama's presence any more than necessary. At the end, Obama headed for McCain for the obligatory post-debate handshake and congratulations... while McCain circled around his podium the other way and made a beeline for the moderator. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that on what level... but it doesn't make me think of McCain as being more likely to "reach across the aisle" to the other party if he gets the top job.

Beyond that, just a few notes about the presentation of the debate... since I'm all over-the-air-digital these days, I picked the station with the strongest signal at my house to watch the fun... which, in this case, was the local PBS station. I'm sure the actual debate would have been quite similar to watch over any station... but the commentary after-the-fact was quite different. I know this because I switched between PBS and CBS a couple of times during that time period. PBS... well, there's no "polite" way to put this, but their news types are universally "funny-looking" compared to their corporate counterparts... what combination of people with a drive for journalistic excellence shunning the corporations versus corporations weeding out non-beautiful-people types produces this effect, I don't know. What I do know is that I'll take those funny-looking people talking seemingly honestly with each other based on their past experience over the pretty talking heads employed by the networks and parties (and their surrogates) any day... heck, CBS even used part of their after-show to go to "Spin Alley", where they give more air time to hacks for the two parties... because that's what they really need for free these days, right?

So, it wasn't a total waste of time, I suppose... I guess I'll have to see about tuning in next week to see the matchup between Caribou Barbie and the Combover from Hell... :)