almost an hour in...

Ok, so, a lot of good verbal sparring has occurred...

McCain is coming in stronger than I expected, but Obama is certainly holding his ground well.

After a little fluff attacks based on voting records and domestic spending we got to the meat of the debate:
Iraq, Afghanistan, and I assume we will be touching on Iran soon...

Anyway, apart from McCain's rousing defense of Nuclear Power, he seems to be offering little in the way of change or progressive movement forward...

I wholeheartedly agree that we need to be drawing down troops in Iraq (we should have started a few months ago) and then slowly (no more of these year long deployments and whip-lash re-ups) rebuild our forces in Afghanistan to clear out the Taliban, and the Mujaheddin-supporting warlords that control much of the country. That will be a decisive moral and objective victory for the US that the majority of world powers are behind us on.

Obama recognizes this, McCain deflected into an attack on Obama's support of eleventh-hour military action within the border of Pakistan without informed consent by the government...

McCain doesn't seem to understand that Pakistan is sliding into anarchy on a daily basis and their government is already largely seen as illegitimate.

Anyway, more to come soon...