Democrat debate round-up

The Dems got together for their latest debate shindig down in Charleston last night, this time w/the added spin of letting "regular" people submit questions via YouTube. I must say, I didn't watch. Can't really bring myself to do it when there's anything at all on another channel somewhere. That said, on to a round-up of everyone else's coverage...

From the WaPo:

Democratic presidential candidates shared the spotlight Monday night with ordinary citizens from around the country in a two-hour debate that featured sharp and sometimes witty video questions and often equally sharp exchanges among the candidates on issues ranging from Iraq and health care to whether any of them can fix a broken political system.

The debate, co-sponsored by CNN and YouTube, underscored the arrival of the Internet as a force in politics. The citizen-interrogators generated the most diverse set of questions in any of the presidential debates to date and challenged the candidates to break out of the rhetoric of their campaign speeches and to address sometimes uncomfortable issues, such as race, gender, religion and their own vulnerabilities.

Many questions in the nationally televised session were aimed at the two leading candidates, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), and they used the forum to challenge each other more directly than they have in past debates.

Newsbusters points out that Obama took a jab at Hillary, (and got a "look" for doing so):

BARACK OBAMA: One thing I have to say about Senator Clinton,s comments a couple moments ago: I think it's terrific that she is asking for [Iraq withdrawal] plans from the Pentagon [A+ for condescension there, Barack!], and I think the Pentagon response was ridiculous. But what I also know is that the time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in. And that is something that too many of us [like you, Hillary] failed to do. We failed to do it.

That "look" doesn't say, "nice haricut", or "good point"....but rather suggests how he could supplement his diet.

From Captain Ed:

I missed the show, but if the transcript is any guide, YouTube and its citizen journalists missed the boat. The questions ranged from the inane to ... well, the inane.

Polipundit says Obama had a bad night.

Right Wing News has a good overview.

Hotline wonders whether video will "kill the anchor star".

Wizbang says Hillary won, Obama took second, Biden third.

Instapundit notes Hillary tried to avoid mentioning Bubba...(can you blame her?)

Bluey notes Romney's comment that these Dems are "unprepared to run a corner store, never mind the largest entity in the world"

The Fix has a debate wrap-up...and now "winners and losers"

Right Angle notes the following comments from Gingrich:

At a breakfast hosted by the American Spectator yesterday morning, Gingrich compared the barrage of surface level debates to American Idol -- this line up forum, he said "reduces the concept of national leadership to€¦just one more game show." The noise surrounding modern politics, he says, "is immense" and it drowns out the clear solutions.

There was some liveblogging at: Michelle Malkin - Powerline - Newsbusters - Vodkapundit submitted his own YouTube questings, (and guess what he did while watching)

From over at TechPresident, some observations:

1. This debate held my attention more than usual, mostly because I was interested in seeing each voter-generated video question.

2. The candidates seemed more engaged than usual, but too often I felt they really didn't bother responding to the question or even acknowledging the questioner. That was really surprising, given that they'd been warned that some of the questioners would be in the audience.

Read the rest...

More: MSNBC - Blogs for Bush - Outside the Beltway - the WaPo - Bainbridge - Hot Air - Sister Toldjah