Who won the first debate?

Yesterday morning, on the web, there was an ad claiming "McCain won the debate."

Only one problem: the debate took place last night. That ad appeared even before John confirmed that he would attend to debate, thereby suspending the suspension of his campaign. The unbearable suspense was over.

If John won the debate before the debate, who won the debate after the debate actually took place?

Well, that's not an easy one.

My first gut feeling was that John won the debate. Not because the policies he advocated are better, but because I think he said what people wanted to hear.
Barack exposed policies that I think more efficient, more intelligent and less simplistic. But that is exactly why he might have lost the debate. We know how most voters work.

A few random facts, first about the style of the candidates, then about the contents of what they said.

John never looked at Barack. He was speaking about "Senator Obama" in the third person, addressing and looking only at the moderator. He never looked at the camera -- that is the American people and myself.

Barack talked about "John" and he looked at him, using "you" instead of "he." A couple of times, he looked at me -- that is into the camera.

John did not blunder -- except on the name of Ahmadinejahd, but I don't think that counts -- as he had done for the previous two weeks every time he attempted to talk about the economy.

Barack said several times that he agreed with John, or that John was right, etc.

First conclusions: John did much better than I had seen him do before. However, he looked contemptuous, never looking at his opponent, never addressing him. Many commentators thought he looked angry. I did not perceive it that way, but I might be wrong. To me, his avoiding to look at Barack made him look strong, straight in his boots, an unflinching tough guy. A commander-in-chief kind of guy. This is exactly why John might have won the debate. Many people want to see a tough guy in the White House these days.

Barack did not look as lecturing as he might have. He actually appeared rather gentlemanly. Maybe too much. There is no doubt the Republicans are going to rehash today that Barack said he agreed with John about ten times. They will of course ignore the fact that everytime he agreed with John, it was to better bring up a distinction, a point about which they were in fundamental disagreement.
I don't think Barack was punchy enough, especially during the first part of the debate dealing with the economy. He let John talk about government spending without telling him what I think he should have told him: It is not about how much the government spends, it is about how and where the government spends.

By the way, it was quite ironic to hear them talk about how bad government spending is just when the government is about to spend $700 billion dollars to bail out Wall Street.

Content-wise, given the fact that John really sucks at economics, I think he won the part of the debate dealing with the economy. Again, not because I think his policies are better -- on health care, for example, he repeated that a governmental health care system would be bad because "the government should not be between the doctor and the patient" (oh my god! I can't hear that crap anymore; Keith, make me come to your show so that I can explain a few things about a governmental health care system) and that families should be able to choose their health care plan (meaning they can choose between daylight robbery and shameless rip-off) -- not because his policies are better -- I was saying before ranting -- but because he was simplistic enough for people to understand what he was saying.

On foreign policy, though, Barack was brilliant. Maybe too brilliant, too savvy, with too much in-depth analysis. He demonstrated that he knows the world as it is, but I am not sure people want to hear that Ahmadinejahd is not the most powerful man in Iran. I think people want to hear that Ahmadinejahd is a bastard and he should be hanged.

However, Barack probably scored points -- with undecided voters, not with Republican voters -- when he drove home that John was wrong about the war in Iraq: When you said the war would be quick and easy, you were wrong; when you said we would find weapons of mass destruction, you were wrong; when you said Al Qaeda was in Iraq, you were wrong.
That was probably the strongest Obama moment.

Barack was also politically smarter when he advocated for more diplomacy, saying that the US need to sit with rogue states and talk.
John tried to ridicule the idea that the US President should sit with people like Ahmadinejahd without pre-conditions.
Barack made clear he is not talking about the President himself inviting Ahmadinejahd "for tea," but a US representative sitting with an Iranian representative. One of his strong lines was when he said that "without preconditions" means that the US can't tell Iran or Pakistan, We will meet with you only after you have done exactly what we want you to do.

Untill the Americans understand that point, they will be unsafe, and the world will be full of "people who don't like us," as John said again. At some point, the Americans are going to have to wonder why there are so many people who don't like them. Barack emphasized that when he said several times that the US is not respected anymore as it used to be.

There were many other points worthy of commentary during this debate, but I am ranting and it's not coming back to me right now.

Just one last point. Although Barack advocated more diplomacy in US foreign policy, he still appeared like he would not hesitate to go to war against Iran or Pakistan if needs be. The US seems to be doomed to be a bellicose nation. Barack even agreed with John that Iran is building nuclear weapons. To my knowledge -- but I am no expert and please comment and talk me down if you know better -- Iran's building nuclear weapons has not been proved more strongly than Iraq's WMD yet. As far as I know, all we know about Iran's nuclear activities is that they are civilian programs, which should be fine.
More fundamentally, I think there is a problem when the country with the most powerful nuclear arsenal orders another country not to have any nuclear activities.

Anyway, if you have seen the debate, please leave comments, hightlight things that I have not mentioned, give me your input.

Next Thursday, it's VP debate day. Joe Biden, the most savvy of them all about the world at large, vs. Sarah Palin, who can see Russia from her bedroom.

By the way, just a quick note about Sarah (it's hard to resist talking about her): more and more Republicans are embarrassed at the interview she gave to Katie Couric this week (you can see bits of it on my facebook or on CBS website). One Conservative female editorialist even said: "If BS [bullshit] was currency, Sarah Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."

Adishats!