I missed the debate last night, because a) we were still cooking the Soupe au Pistou, and b) ABC had a ridiculously draconian blackout policy and no streaming feed (on the main site). I did eventually find the local Philly ABC station streaming the debate, but it was only for the final "wrap up" question about what they would say to a roving band of unpledged Superdelegates... which was lame, and only confirmed that Obama looked really tired.
By most accounts I've seen, it seems the only thing I missed was the opportunity to get angry enough to throw something at my monitor. Thankfully, via the wonders of the internet, I can let Andrew Sullivan stroke out for me and just read the aftermath. The first hour was apparently what journalists like to call "process questions", which is a euphemism for "Right Wing Talking Points cribbed from the Weekly Standard". Some people think those kinds of questions are important, and those people are idiots.
From what I can gather from all the roundups is that the take home message is that Obama lost narrowly, so that sorta means he won, because Clinton had to change the narrative. Got that?
It seems the real question in impact is whether the backlash against ABC from Dems translates into votes for Obama. I suspect it will, because "new politics" is Obama is all about... and, according to Nick Beaudrot, Obama's "this stuff is a waste of time" points were very well received by the people with the dials.
Obviously, we won't really know until Tuesday, when Pennsylvanians go to the polls... but anything less than a 10 point loss has got to be seen as a net win after all the pounding Obama's taken the last two weeks, right?
UPDATE: Here are some more scathing critiques of ABC's "unmitigated travesty" of a debate that I cribbed from Will Bunch (who has my favorite response so far). Tom Shales at the WaPo, Walter Shapiro at Salon, and Niall Stanage at the Guardian.
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