McCain smirked, blinked and grinned but couldn’t seem to look Obama in the eye

The punditocracy has reached a consensus that the debate was a draw, and a few of these thought leaders are even suggesting that McCain won. If so, that’s a shame, because I found his performance to be appalling. Josh Marshall, said it this way, and I couldn’t agree more:

Whether it was contempt or condescension or some sort of fear or inability to — in the most literal sense — face Obama, it made McCain look small and angry. I apologize that I can’t link to them because I don’t remember who wrote it. But as someone wrote after the debate, for that kind of attitude to have ‘worked’ for McCain, Obama needed to come off as completely ignorant and unprepared. And I don’t think even his harshest critics believe that is what happened. Roll it all together and Obama just seemed like a bigger person than McCain. And in a race in which the issue agenda and party identification already work strongly in Obama’s favor, that’s an advantage that is very hard for McCain to give up.