I just wanted to comment on the constant stream of "Obama can't debate," and "Hillary Clinton is EXCELLENT" comments that have been perpetuated since the first debate.  

Let's clear up one thing first.  Hillary Clinton is good at soundbites, not debating points.  Barack Obama is good at thoughtful analysis, and we're not used to that because the media has turned debates in to soundbite sessions.

I'll give you an example.  In the first debate Brian "The Sky is Falling" Williams asked about a terrorist attack and what would the candidates do to change the military posture overseas, by the way, none of them answered THAT question.  

What Obama said was essentially the first thing he would do is ensure that the response to said disaster was appropriate so that we might prevent a higher casualty rate than absolutely necessary.  It was the response to Katrina that killed more people, not the actual event itself.  

Senator Clinton told the audience exactly what they wanted to hear, basically, "I will bomb the HELL out of somebody." That's all fine indeed, if you are a visceral, reactionary child.  But what Senator Obama said was, "I will tend to my flock first, and then we will punish those who did it."

The MSM and every Hillary supporter went absolutely crazy.  Was her response good, yes, if you're listening to hear what you want to hear and not what you NEED to hear.  It was an excellent soundbite.  I also remember her saying she would "retaliate."  As if this were Russia sinking one of our battleships and we could just go and sink one of theirs.  I think all the candidates missed part of that point, including Obama.  You cannot play tit-for-tat with a terrorist organization, we must irradicate them, so "retaliate" was not the right word.  That doesn't just include militarily.  You have to strike at the root of the cause of terrorism.  That is something that the Bushies have obviously missed out on.

At the second debate, the MSM seemed to believe Hillary Clinton had stolen the show because she told Blitzer that the candidates would not engage in hypotheticals.  She also made it clear that there was no real difference between the Democrats on Iraq.

Two problems:  Senator Clinton took control of that question about a half hour after Senator Obama told Blitzer that the immigration debate was specifically aimed at dividing us, and he did not accept the premise of the question.  Nobody talked about that much because of the amazing snapiness of Saint Clinton.  Secondly, Senator Clinton was correct.  She and the other Democrats did not differ greatly on Iraq.  That includes her and Biden, Edwards, Richardson, and several of the others. It also includes Obama, if you leave out the most important fact that she voted for the authorization for the IWR, and Senator Obama very pubicly opposed it.  At a time when judgement counted the most, hers was lacking.  

In the Presidential Forum at Howard last night, Senator Clinton made a remark about HIV/AIDS and how if white women were the ones who were being infected in record numbers, somehow, this would've been dealt with by now.

This was great soundbite-style debating.  Clinton felt where her audience was and she pulled at the pander string.  As a black man, I was not very impressed.  This was a sound bite, and nothing more.  The problem is that some in the black community will use it as an excuse to write off Obama for not saying it, and build up the Gentle Lady from New York for pulling such a pander.  And to those of you who say the audience loved it:  DUH!  THAT'S WHAT A PANDER IS FOR!  Nothing she said was substantive, but it hit the race chord just right.  Senator Obama, on the other hand, insisted that we in the community take responsibility for ourselves, that we up the education, which means, lets get rid of "abstinence now, abstinence tomorra, abstinence forevuh."  He said what needed to be heard, not what we wanted to hear.

In conclusion, I tell you that the reason we have an idiot in the White House today is because the average person is not particularly intelligent, and this includes the so-called intelligencia who sits on TV mouthing-off about who won what debate.  We have become so accustomed to the soundbite candidacy to the point where style has so trumped substance that we can no longer tell the difference.

Many pretend that Obama is all style and no substance, but the reason his debate answers sound boring to you is because they are well thought-out, offer actual solutions, and are more about getting something done than getting some applause.

Obama is, to me, a man of towering intellect and I have no problem following his answers in debates and understanding that what he's trying to do is actually acheive something, not just talk about it for 60 seconds.

And I'm not saying that Mrs. Clinton is ALL style in the debates, but perhaps if she was a little more substance, she might actually be saying something.