This excerpt from Byron York:

Barack Obama plays Mr. Nice Guy — and loses — in the first debate.

Oxford, Mississippi — A few minutes after the debate between John McCain and Barack Obama ended here on the campus of the University of Mississippi, I asked close McCain adviser Charlie Black whether Obama had performed as McCain’s debate team had anticipated.

“No, no,” Black said emphatically. “I never expected Sen. Obama to spend the entire debate on the defensive, and he did. He did.”

Maybe there was a tad of exaggeration in Black’s verdict, but there was some truth in it, too. Obama was smooth, unflappable, and just a little off balance for much of the evening. Worse for him, he seemed inexplicably eager to concede that McCain was right on issue after issue. A candidate determined to appear congenial might do that once, or even twice, but Obama did it eight times:

“I think Senator McCain’s absolutely right that we need more responsibility…”

“Senator McCain is absolutely right that the earmarks process has been abused…”

“He’s also right that oftentimes lobbyists and special interests are the ones that are introducing these…requests…”

“John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he’s absolutely right…”

“John is right we have to make cuts…”

“Senator McCain is absolutely right that the violence has been reduced as a consequence of the extraordinary sacrifice of our troops and our military families…”

“John — you’re absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say…”

“Senator McCain is absolutely right, we cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran…”

But Obama’s problem wasn’t just saying “John is right” too many times. He also let McCain control the discussion even when — especially when — the conversation turned to issues that play to Obama’s strength. The debate was scheduled to focus entirely on foreign policy and national security, but for obvious reasons moderator Jim Lehrer devoted the first half-hour to the current financial crisis. Polls show Obama with a pretty big lead on economic issues, and yet McCain was able to turn the discussion — ostensibly about the $700 billion bailout proposal — into an extended examination of federal spending and earmarks, two issues about which McCain has strong feelings and a good record. When McCain pointed out that Obama had asked for $932 million in earmarks — “nearly a million dollars a day for every day that he’s been in the United States Senate” — Obama answered weakly that yes, the process has been abused, “which is why I suspended any requests for my home state, whether it was for senior centers or what have you, until we cleaned it up.” Not his best moment.

When the debate came around to the topic of the evening, McCain outshone Obama on topics like Russia and Pakistan while hitting him over and over for his comments, made in earlier Democratic debates, that he would meet Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “without precondition.” On Iraq, the two men fought to a draw, with McCain arguing that Obama was wrong on the surge and Obama arguing that McCain was wrong on the war. It seems unlikely they will change anyone’s mind about that.

The bottom line was that Obama did well enough, but McCain did better. A number of post-debate observers suggested that Obama might emerge the winner on these topics because he was able to stand alongside McCain and argue as an equal despite McCain’s greater experience. Maybe viewers will handicap the contest that way, but if they judge it straight, McCain will come out on top.

What a mistake it would have been for McCain to have stayed away from this debate. Several hours before it began, when it was finally clear that there was going to be a debate at all, the Obama campaign sent an e-mail to reporters attempting to lower expectations for their man’s performance. Nobody paid much attention; it was, after all, an entirely unremarkable bit of pre-spin. But in this case, it turned out to be right.