Debate comments

First of all, while I felt that based on the controversial aspect of her being the moderator, Gwen Ifill should have stepped aside, I also, as a fan of Ms. Ifill, am delighted that she did in my opinion a fantastic job moderating this debate. As with her hosting duties on "Washington Week," she came across, to me at least, as being unbiased and fair. She did not seem to favor one candidate over the other, she did not seem to be trying to pull a "Couric" moment on Gov. Palin, she was not (and never is) "in your face" with liberal politics (see Keith Olbermann for an example of the opposite), and she seemed as gracious and warm as always. To those bloggers out there who called her "pathetic" and "unprofessional," I am sure there are recipes for crow available on the Internet; crow probably tastes best fried in butter, and be sure to remove the feathers before serving it. And next time, try actually *watching* Ms. Ifill on "Washington Week" before you open your mouth and criticize her before the fact. Jerks.

It's fun to see that even the Palin critics are grudgingly conceding she won the debate; of course, as a conservative, I am thrilled by that! I do want to say that if you want to see something very interesting, turn Fox off and watch CNN (some people I know would never turn Fox off for anything, and can't stand CNN, but hear me out here). CNN had a running opinion line on the bottom of the screen of undecided Ohio voters, both men and women, and you could see as the debate progressed what comments by each candidate were scoring quite highly with the undecided Ohio focus group and which were not. It was quite interesting to see Gov. Palin's lines going through the roof for much of the debate, and as soon as Sen. Biden began to speak, the lines went down!

I do wonder if those people who criticized Sen. Obama for constantly referring to Sen. McCain as "John" were in the least offended by Gov. Palin continually referring to Sen. Obama as "Barack" throughout the debate? Would they admit to it if they were? (See, I can play devil's advocate with the best of them!)

10/3 - additional comment - Interesting to note that thus far, none of the bloggers who so scornfully attacked Gwen Ifill have had the decency to apologize. Watching "Washington Week" tonight, I still maintain the opinion that Ms. Ifill comes across as a gracious, warm, charming lady, certainly not an "unprofessional whiner" as she has been characterized by some bloggers. I also still maintain that you cannot tell from her demeanor or her questions what her political beliefs are. She comes across as neither liberal nor conservative to me, which is what a good host (or debate moderator) should be like. I think some of these bloggers are thinking of people like Eleanor Clift of "The McLaughlin Group," but Ms. Ifill is hardly like Eleanor Clift. Bloggers (and you know who you are if you're reading this), are you humble enough to apologize, or at least to grudgingly admit that Ms. Ifill did not seem biased in the least in her moderating role of last night's debate? (And, no, she wasn't "being careful," because she *never* comes across as biased, and if you actually bothered to *watch* "Washington Week," you might realize this.)

Is NBC really calling the election for Obama, four weeks out? Well, first of all, I certainly hope they're wrong, and second, remember it was the news media who predicted that one state (which one was it? can't remember now - was it New Hampshire?) for Obama, and Hillary Clinton in a major surprise trounced Obama in that state, and the news media spent the next 48 hours scratching their heads and trying to figure out how all their polls had been so totally wrong. So don't give up hope yet, if you're a McCain supporter!