I spent the debate reading twitter, on IM, and going around the blogs and traditional media sites. In the background was Obama and McCain chattering, and occasionally I looked up and saw the TV. So no cone of silence, but no real focus on the debate. What I'm seeing from the chatter and the analysis afterwards is that Obama held his own in this debate, which is an area in which McCain was supposed to dominate.
Lots of blinking from McCain, and there's a general sense of depondency from the progressive side. Perhaps it's all the 'John is right' lines coming from Obama. The McCain campaign is taking advantage of those lines by pushing out that Obama agrees with John McCain. The Obama camp is sending out fact check after fact check.
More soon. What coverage are you watching and what are you hearing?
Taylor Marsh and Jane Hamsher write compelling posts about Elizabeth Edwards, who blasted Moveon earlier this week. She joins Democratic 'strategist' Peter Fenn who blasted Moveon on MSNBC yesterday, and Laura Schwartz, a fellow 'Democratic strategist', who did so on Fox News, and John Kerry, who argued that Petraeus ought not be criticized. And then there's 'liberal' commentator Mark Shields who went after Moveon with a vicious and dishonest smear.
MARK SHIELDS: The activist antiwar wing of the Democratic -- I won't even call it the Democratic Party, because they're not Democrats, but particularized by MoveOn.org this week, with it's just offensive and tasteless full-page ad in the New York Times, playing a pun on General Petraeus' name, "General Betray Us."
I think, in a strange way, it did two things. One, it gave the Republicans something to talk about all week, rather than trying to defend the president's policy, which many of them are uncomfortable doing. But it also may very well liberate the Democrats, that they don't -- from that antiwar base. And they say, "Look, I think there's a chance of a compromise."
There are many ways to disagree with this ad without undermining your allies. Lowell Feld, for instance, called it a 'big mistake' without raising hackles. Part of building an effective movement is knowing when an attack is an attack on surrogates, and when it's an attack on ideas. Moveon and its 3 million members were standing up for integrity in military leadership, public debate, and Congressional oversight.
There's a reflexive instinct to shy away from heated arguments among Democrats, so I'm sympathetic to those who threw Moveon under the bus, as I have been thrown under the bus by good people at certain points. It happens. It's politics. Still, it's important to recognize this as an error, and not do it again.
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