Let's get presidential on your ass.

What did people think of the first debate tonight?

Up until now I haven't been a great fan of John Kerry. I've been planning to vote for him because I don't see a good alternative, but I haven't felt very happy about it. I was looking for him to do well in the debate tonight, both because I've been trying to find reasons to feel good about voting for him and because he has these debate credentials.

I have to say that I was basically pleased with what I saw.

I particularly liked his eventual response to Bush's unflagging criticism that a president cannot show uncertainty or change his mind once decisions have been made. John Kerry's response that certainty is great if you're right, and that certainty will come back to bite you in the ass (loose paraphrase here) if you're wrong and don't adapt your decisions to new information, was long overdue. I'd been wondering why he hadn't answered along those lines sooner, so I was glad when he finally did.

Kerry spoke very well, and Bush did okay for Bush, which is sort of the problem: people have a lower bar for Bush when it comes to public speaking. He can win debates without really winning debates.

Kerry comes across as very smart, very articulate, and not at all charismatic. Bush comes across as smart enough, not very articulate, and very charismatic.

I'm wondering what other people thought, since I was clearly looking for Kerry to do well from the get-go and was probably not really objective.

So? What of it?