PWNED.

I do have to say that Obama more or less completely pwned McCain in tonight's debate. If you didn't see it (even if you're out of the country) hop on over to Hulu and you should be able to watch it there. Oh, and Hulu does appear to have the "clue" about how to do video online, and will probably ensure a bright future for NBC.

Back on the subject of the debate, I begin to think that McCain is in some respects, breaking away from his own party, and for this I am gaining great respect for the man. Earlier this week, someone at one of McCain's town hall meetings started to try to bring up one of the nastier unfounded accusations about Obama (which Palin has been encouraging, to my disgust), and McCain flat out shut them down. He stated right then and there that what was being suggested was wrong, and that he didn't think Obama was a bad guy, and thought that he might even make a decent President but that there were simply some issues on which he and Obama disagreed. In-credible.

One of the bugaboos that Sarah Palin's been swinging around has to do with Obama's association with Bill Ayers, who a rather long time ago was indeed a domestic terrorist. Obama's association with Ayers stemmed from working with him on a school board (which is about as harmless as it gets--yes, Ayers settled down a long time ago and is now a professor of Education at a college) which is not something Sarah Palin feels it necessary to mention. Tonight, McCain completely threw a softball pitch to Obama and gave him the opportunity to address those "out of bounds remarks" just so Obama could completely "knock it out of the park". A-freaking-mazing.

It is absolutely heartwarming to see them both being gentlemen about this, regardless of what the people around them are doing. Personally I think Obama is a more useful man for the job (for reasons I won't go into) but as a person, my respect for McCain has gone up immeasurably. ...almost to the point that I would consider overlooking his change of heart on whether or not the U.S. should engage in torture.

(Originally, for somewhat obvious reasons, McCain was against the idea of torture for any reason. During the latter part of the first big push to do "whatever" to stop terrorism, Bush's people apparently had a talk with him and he changed that view. A man who can't raise his hands above his head actually decided that torture was a valid tool. Whoa.)