Hillary Pummels Obama

Jim Geraghty says Hillary won the debate and it wasn't even close:

Forty-five Minutes of Pummeling Before a Wonky Cooldown

I don’t like Hillary Clinton. But I respect her as an adversary. And every once in a while, when she demonstrates she has the guts to “go there” in front of a Democratic audience that want their debates to be criticism-free lovefests, I’m tempted to say, “I like the cut of your jib, Senator.” It’s like watching a linebacker perfectly execute a blitz and flatten a quarterback from the blind side. It’s brutal, and tough to watch when it’s your guy being hit, but it’s within the rules and almost artistic when it’s perfectly executed.

Tonight, she had her stumbles. Her answer on the Bosnia sniper tales really didn’t help her out that much; she needed to explain something bewildering to the average Joe, which is remembering things that didn’t happen. She made a lame joke about not getting enough sleep, but oddly, Obama didn’t jump in by mentioning her “3 a.m.” ads.

But she tore into Obama on all of his weak spots. Relentlessly. For the most part, she avoided looking nasty while she did it. She focused on the ‘cling’ comment in the context of not understanding the role of religion in people's lives. She repeated what Wright actually said the Sunday after 9/11, and probably introduced Wright’s blaming of America to a lot of people who had only heard Wright’s sermons through a media filter. She twisted the knife when she noted that people don’t choose their families, but they choose their pastor. When Obama tried to downplay his relationship to William Ayers, she brought up the Woods Foundation.

After about forty-five minutes, David Axelrod probably should have thrown in the towel and stopped the fight.

Obama got a little better as the night wore on, but the damage was done. He looked terrible tonight. He said he disowned Wright – contradicting his speech line about being no more able to disown Wright than his own grandmother — then backed away and said he only disowned his comments. When Hillary brought up Wright’s 9/11 comments, he merely lamented that some of his comments had been “objectionable.” He never quite explained why he stopped wearing the American flag pin, and he kept digging in deeper on William Ayers. He dismissed the question, then described Ayers as an “English professor.” He completely downplayed Ayers’ terrorist past, and said they didn’t exchange ideas “on a regular basis.” Then he compared his relationship to Ayers to his relationship with Senator Tom Coburn! Way to chase away the last of the Obamacans, Senator.

Hillary closed by saying she’s a fighter. She proved that tonight; if I were on Team McCain, tonight might have convinced me to hope for a showdown with Obama.

UPDATE: During the night, I wondered if Democrats would conclude she was too nasty and negative. But I don't think she ever came across as shrill or sneering in her delivery, like when she did with the "slumlord Rezko" line a few debates ago. But I suppose it's possible that tonight's performance backfires, that Democrats see her as tearing down their Obamessiah. But my first gut instinct is that she's knocking him off his pedestal with all of this...

Even Hillary is doing her part for Operation Chaos.

UPDATE: Another interesting review from David Brooks.

UPDATE 2: The lefties, especially the pro-Obama blogs, truly hated this debate and basically think the moderators are of the devil. Some examples can be found here, here and here.