One of the most heartening aspects of the debate last night was how each of them, at various places, suggested confidence in defending their liberal values. On immigration and on spending for health care they said things like "I embrace that debate" or "I'm happy to defend my position on that." Whether it was the words themselves or the content of their answers, I am thrilled that finally we might have a candidate who would not run from the Republican smear machine but would stand and confidently say, "Yes, I am IN FAVOR of what you call higher taxes because it gives us universal health care while merely putting us back to pre-Bush levels of taxation where we all did just fine." I thought it actually worked when they pointed to each other's minor flip-flopping to demonstrate the "difficulty" of the issues that "don't poll well." When candidates are honest like that, it resonates. People are reasonable if there is a reasonable explanation, and I've often that if a candidate pointed out that there are no easy answers, it makes his or her case better.

Several of the Politico questions were plain wrong, framed with erroneous bias. For example, "I think the government is just a big business..." Hurray for Hillary for saying, "With all due respect, it's not; it's much more than that." And the caller who acted like it's a slam dunk that blacks suffer economically for illegal immigration. That's much debated, not a demonstrated causal connection at all; I love that Obama was not afraid to disagree with it.

What I'm saying is that these two cerebral, articulate candidates can and do actually confront some of the traditionally stickier issues (immigration, taxes) head on because they possess the language skills necessary to defend their positions reasonably without sacrificing truth.

HR Clinton's laugh cracks me up -- it's a braying laugh: BWAH-hah-hah! That's an appropriate laugh for a Democratic Party candidate, have to say, given that donkeys bray, and apparently, so does Clinton! That said, I liked her bray; it's such an over-the-top laugh, such an ungainly thing, it's actually charming. It makes me want to see her laughing more. Given how otherwise stage-managed and unspontaneous Clinton is, day-to-day, I love the bray. I hope Obama makes her laugh more during upcoming debates, so we can hear it some more. BWAH-hah-hah! Reminded me of Burgess Meredith as the Penguin in the campy 60s Batman. Anyway, it was great!

"Hillary Clinton is the Salieri to Obama's Mozart. If Hillary wins this race it will be all of our loss."

Yes, he really is a rare talent. It will be a shame if that talent has to be put on ice for 8 years, but that still seems the most likely scenario. It's just extremely difficult to beat the only successful Democrat (Clintons) of the last 30 years in presidential politics, when they start with all the name recognition, connections, etc... The tsunami of states on Feb. 5 doesn't help him either.

That's not to say that HRC isn't an extremely impressive person. She is. She's wonky, smart, diligent, skillfully collegial, even charismatic and sexy in her way. She's just not a natural leader, and not a genius of politics. She could be one of the greatest Senate Majority Leaders in history, and ride that position the rest of her career, if her ambitions weren't so outsized. That's what always strikes me about her -- she's Senatorial, in the very best sense.

Oh well, she'd be a vast improvement on Bush in most ways, as would McCain. Still, it will feel to many like a huge opportunity missed if it's not President Obama being inaugurated next January.

Why? Because there was no fighting? Because they stuck to the issues, and portrayed a unified front?

The Republican debate with McCain and Romney about ready to slug one another ... now that was exciting?

This was by far the MOST EXCITING debate I have EVER witnessed in my life.

Two articulate, intelligent, intellectually curious Americans, who by sticking to the issues and offering viable solutions and thereby representing all Americans, was uplifting and, very exciting.

Oh yes, and one of them happened to be a woman and one African American. So damn exciting I can bust!!!

And by the way .. who gives a crap what they were wearing? Stick to the issues.

It was clear that Clinton and Obama decided before the debate that it was very important to portray themselves as classy and committed in direct contrast to the sandbox spat of the republican debate the previous night. They stayed above the fray, refusing even with Blitzer's deliberate prompting, to behave in the infantile ugly way that the other party's candidates did. It worked. The thing I got most out of this debate was that whoever wins the democratic nomination will be head and shoulders above the republican nominee in terms of class, poise, and leadership qualities. It was smart politics and I commend them both.

My wife is a Hillary lover and I favor Obama, but the idea of a combined ticket may not be as far fetched as some would think. It is clear that these two both believe that the other would be preferable to any republican and if a combined ticket would help insure a democratic victory in November, I believe they would both do whatever they could to make that happen... including being the other's vp.

Now think ahead to the coming debates between the republican and democratic nominee. Can you say filthy mud slinging? Ask yourself which of these candidate will stand up best to the inevitable low-down dirty tactics the republicans are so fond of?

One can thank Thomas Schaller for a dignified account of the proceedings but the content of the debate left us aghast with horror, to say nothing of the press accounts. We remember that Florida election with the little bits of paper and the counting which gave us Bush. Here we had the two probable contestants to lead the United States in world affairs for 4 years and it really looked like a village mayor's election, avoiding to hurt the other's feelings in an overdose of comity. How you are right to point out the vulgar incitations to a brawl attempted by CNN's little Blitzer (Mr Sideswipe) whose lack of rules did not even include a parity word count.

Hillary Clinton just speaks words when she has no opinion, indicating by her verbosity that she could well have been "naive" over Bush's Irak vote. Naive but also possibly dead ignorant! One can not imagine her wading through the small type of the National Intelligence Estimate, nor learning about Mr Cheney's Operation of Special Plans in the Pentagon (the OSP) set up to invent reasons for war and WMDs.

As Clinton's wife she could even have met someone from the IAEA if not Mohamed ElBaradei, or perhaps Hans Blix. By her words Ms Clinton gave us the impression she knew nothing of the Middle East, its misery, its religions and cultures and its history, just bringing her boys home like a Granny.

Mind you the questions did not give much opportunity to display whether the USA would get out of this mess with one of them, although Mr Obama did speak like a politician who was aware of the dossiers and their complexity. It is useless to say the American electorate are not interested in such matters because Bush has made the Iraq war into a domestic issue, with domestic deaths,and domestic dollars spent. Thomas Schaller says they are both "credible" as seen addressing a Hollywood "constellation" of four and half big stars. But in a future conference on Palestine or Pakistan which one of the two would represent better the interests of the free world and the US electorate?

Neither of those two gave us reason for hope. Obama will be shot down by the right wing if only metaphorically. Meanwhile in Peking they are watching the US economy and their share of it. Moscow is waiting to take on the new US President, Europe is quarreling as ever, Africa is in flames, India is growing, and the world is over heating. That next White House will need some very savvy people.