"Gloves off?" Right. Limbaugh is going to rip McCain a new one tomorrow, but I think McCain made the right choice. Boring, but right.

That being said, I say get rid of the damn moderators altogether, and stand them both behind podiums in front of cameras and nobody else for an hour.

Thunderdome!

Then watch as election turnout is five percent...

Obama is a socialist who can't be one during an election and is on very unfamiliar territory. In his old comfortable environment he would be talking smoothly and easily about nationalizing the health system, breaking up the oil companies and corporations, massive wealth redistribution, and all the rest of the wish list.

McCain is a conservative with no serious background in what the hell the philosophical basics are. He believes in free markets and private solutions, but mostly out of habit. He doesn't really know WHY.

The end result is two guys reading off index cards, without the inherent knowledge of conceptual roots that allows someone to discuss an issue easily.

You can see how it's done in good teachers. A teacher who really knows and lives the stuff can adapt explanations on the fly, tune the teaching to a particular audience, make appropriate jokes about the material, get the point across, and isn't up a creek if the discussion gets off the index cards.

The traditional "drunkblogging" here.

Crittenden's distillation

Bias alert, of course.