Last night I followed the second presidential debate on six blogs: Ann Althouse’s, Hugh Hewitt’s, The LLamabutchers, The Spoons Experience, Talkleft, and TTLB.

Ann Althouse seemed to be having less trouble with her Tivo than during the vice-presidential debate and TTLB’s server stayed up. Spoons was noticeably happier than during the last debate.

I don’t know if I was just missing Steve Green’s coverage (Steve sensibly took the night off) or whether campaign fatigue has set in but I thought everybody’s coverage lacked a certain amount of zing.

Best quip of the night was, of course, from the Llamabutchers:

LAST QUESTION: “President Bush, give three instances in which you were wrong, and was this because you are 1.) evil; B.) Niave; or III) under the thumb of your Sith Masters at Halliburton?”

In reflecting on last night’s second presidential debate, I found myself wondering if incumbency isn’t a two-edged sword. On the one hand incumbency automatically gives you a soap box. Whether it’s visiting people left homeless by the hurricanes in Florida or signing a bill into law in Iowa, what the president does is news. It’s pretty easy for the president to get more coverage from the news media. And you’ve got a record to run on. Your opponent has theories and plans. That record conveys on the incumbent a credibility that a challenger must run against directly.

But there are perils, too. Front and center there’s the record. Every president has failures as well as successes. And questions like the one asked last night in St. Louis: “Name your three biggest mistakes as president”. Dodge it and you’re arrogant—you never acknowledge you’ve made a mistake. Answer it and you give endless ammunition to your opponents. Or make enemies (as Bush implied in his answer last night). The prudent politician will dodge.

In case you missed the 2nd presidential debate held between John Kerry and George W. Bush last night in St. Louis, here’s a handy summary:

George W. Bush:

• A leader must send a clear message to allies and enemies.
• My opponent is a tax-and-spend liberal.
• My opponent’s Senate career is lackluster.
• I don’t know what the Dred Scott decision was about.
• Do you want to buy some wood?

John Kerry:

• Bush lied!
• He went to war without a plan to win the peace.
• The real terrorists are in Afghanistan.
• I have a plan.
• What do labels mean, anyway?

My take: a draw? possible slight advantage either way?

I found this one very difficult to call. The format of the debate was peculiar. It was rather as though someone had taken a townhall meeting and had it bronzed. The pseudo-townhall format was surprisingly well-suited to Bush. I can’t say he was at ease but he did give a strong performance. Kerry also gave a strong performance but seemed less articulate as the evening wore on.

I admit to tone deafness on the paralinguistic features of the debate but I don’t see how anyone can construe this debate as a solid victory for either Bush or Kerry although that’s what the true believers on either side of the aisle e.g. Atrios and Hugh Hewitt are doing.

Bush’s performance was better than at the last debate and that should stiffen the spines of some of his base. I’d say neither of the candidates did themselves any real harm last night.

We continue to see a campaign strategy emerging for the Bush/Cheney campaign. Bush was able to keep Kerry’s “global test” gaffe in the air for a while longer; he introduced Kerry’s Senate record into the discussion for essentially the first time; and he painted Kerry as a tax-and-spend liberal. Kerry employed an approach in this debate similar to the phlegmatic approach that Edwards used in the vice-presidential debate—get back onto your stump speech as quickly as possible. Does Kerry have a campaign strategy?

UPDATE: Scott Ott has more on Mr. Kerry’s plans.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice gives his typically fantastic, balanced roundup of opinions around the blogosphere on the debate. Joe’s roundup supports my contention that this debate was a weathervane: Bush supporters (or leaners) thought Bush won, Kerry supporters (or leaners) thought Kerry won, the rest of us thought it was too close to call.

This morning Moe Lane of Obsidian Wings wrote a post called Not a real concern. Yet.. You might want to read it but this post is not about that post. It’s about the comments thread that followed. The most I’ll say about the actual post is that it seemed to me to be pretty temperate and commonsensical.

The following is a play-by-play of the comments.
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Carnival of the Recipes #8 is now up. It’s being hosted by Angela of Fresh as a Daisy. A whole passle of very interesting recipes this time out. The Bloody Mary recipe may come in handy for tonight’s debate.

If one were to try and pick the best blog in the blogosphere it would be hard to know where to start. I suspect that any choice would necessarily reflect one’s own political position and affiliations, aesthetic judgment and prejudices. There are almost no end of candidates for nearly every possible taste. But if one were to select the best commenter on blogs I think there is almost no contest: the ubiquitous praktike.

I find comments that praktike has dropped on blogs all over the political spectrum. I don’t always agree with the comments. I’d say I agree with praktike’s position maybe 50% of the time. But I invariably respect the argument he’s making. It’s nearly always well-expressed, well-reasoned, and well-informed. So I’m always flattered when praktike comments on The Glittering Eye. By the way, praktike’s now-defunct blog was American Footprint. He has a new billet at chez Nadezhda.

In a comment to my recent post Who are the moderate Muslims?, praktike referred me to a very interesting paper, Islamists in the Arab World by Graham E. Fuller from The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It’s a worthwhile contribution to the discussion.
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Courtesy of FARK.com:

Ancient priests from the shrine of goddess Tanit castrated themselves, shaved their heads, wore women’s clothes and tried to imitate women’s step. Castration was practiced in many Asian provinces in ancient times. Sexual mutilation occurred in orgies arranged by the followers of the Bahus cult. Such orgies occurred on vernal equinox days: people would whip each other to the sound of drums and horns. In the state of ecstasy, people would rip off their clothes, cut off their genitals, run out in the streets and throw them into the windows.

And I always thought that screens were invented to keep out insects.

I’ll see Steven Taylor’s Observations of a Travelling Professor and raise him one. About twenty years ago I was working on a major project for a client down in Huntsville, Alabama. I’d hop on a plane first thing Monday morning and come home on the last flight out on Friday evening. As you might imagine I had quite a variety of seat companions on flights that were invariably full.

One Monday morning I was seated in the very last row of the plane. In the smoking section what’s worse. My seat companion was a very large man—I’d say 6′ 6″—who must have tipped the scales at around 350 lbs. He had clearly breakfasted on a hearty breakfast of baked beans and his ideas about personal hygiene were primitive, to say the least. Now I’ve got very broad shoulders so airline seats are pretty cramped for me under the best of circumstances and with such a Brobdingnagian seat companion I had barely enough space to inhale (if I had wanted to with such an odoriferous companion). He spent the entire flight regaling me by showing me his scars. He had some pretty interesting ones in some pretty interesting places. And he wasn’t shy, either.

Can you top that?