Damn.
"How many debate moderators actually get booed on live television? That's how bad it was."
"perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate this year"
"My God. It gets worse and worse. Just move the whole thing to Fox."
"I am outraged, practically shaking, that the debate is almost half over and no issues have been discussed."
"like a battle of Manos the Hands of Fate v.s. Red Zone Cuba"
"Now they're asking about Iraq -- seems like the kind of third-tier issue I'd wait an hour to ask about!"
"We are now 45 minutes into the debate and there has not been a single question on the issues."
"throwing my Subway sandwich at the TV"
"policy questions don't lead to fireworks—but at least you don't get duds like tonight"
"One gets the distinct impression that the debate is geared towards the chattering class, not the nation at large."
So: who liked it? Jonah Goldberg, Mark Hemingway, and John Podhoretz.
You didn't miss much if you didn't watch it. Go read Salon's interesting and fair-minded piece on the three candidates' (McCain? Remember him?) plans to end the war and hug yourself if you were doing something else this evening.
Noted: Kos writes: "I honestly don't understand why Democrats haven't learned to ignore the bullshit substance-less questions and simply say, 'Okay, that's a dumb question. Let's talk about something people care about, like the housing crisis.'" This is mostly but not entirely fair--Obama made a halfhearted pushback at one point. Still: why not? Because if they don't like you, they'll fuck you up; ask Mitt Romney or Al Gore.
Who's they? Who ain't? (cf.)
Update: Welcome Slate readers! If any of you are important D.C. political journalists, please tell someone that if someone really wants to pwn Obama for real, ask dude to explain his firm alliance with the Chicago democratic machine (not Rezko, which has been done to death, but Daley, the odious Dorothy Tillman, etc). Because we can't figure it out. My colleague Ben Joravsky explains better than I can.