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I think my favorite moment was one of the less heralded ones:

McCain: "What's the best way of fixing it? Nuclear power. Sen. Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that."

Yeah, fucking Commie.

Here's a complete transcipt if you want to look up the exact wording of your own highlights.

Best moment for me? When McCain came out against planetariums.

@Gary. And of course he stretched the truth and missed the point to do it. Obama didn't "vote for" the planetarium system, he requested funds for. That request was never fulfilled. More to the point, the reason McCain had this at his fingertips is because Obama discloses it on his website as part of a laudable effort to increase the transparency of the funding process. From my quick glance it looks like that's the only even remotely "wacky" request. Well, other than 3 million for dance therapy, but McCain couldn't go after that because it's for veterans.

I was surprised that Obama didn't respond in favor of science education. Maybe surprised isn't right because the tactic of ignoring most of McCain's earmarks blather has been an effective strategy (or is it a tactic? I'm so naive) but I'd have liked to hear it anyway.

I would specifically liked him to have said "It is to teach our children about the history of the universe, Senator McCain. I know that your running mate thinks that the world is less than 10,000 years old; maybe she should visit the planetarium."

Most interesting point of the debate:

McCain proposes:

a) Spending freeze across the board

b) New $300 billion mortgage bailout

Crazy? A desperate stunt? Horrific to the right?

Maybe: "But that's my proposal, not Senator Obama's."

When he mentioned the spending freeze in the first debate I thought it was one of those nutty off the top of his head ideas that he sometimes pulls out and then retreats on (or fucks up). I was stunned to hear it again. If it's a real policy proposal, there needs to be a much more thorough (that is to say any) analysis of what it would mean.

Per McCain's campaign today, the $300b would come out of the $700b already voted on. Still horrific to the right.

Maybe people can help me out with another weird thing, which I haven't seen discussed anywhere. In the middle of the question about prioritizing health care, entitlements, and energy, McCain claimed that part of the $700bn bailout is going to terrorist organizations. WTF is he talking about?

@Jared. Wrong $700b. He was referring to the amount spent on foreign oil.

No one picked up my own personal gem. His statement to Tom that he’d specifically “answer the question” about Social Security and Medicare, implying Obama did not.

His response that was specific to SS? “I’ll fix it, it’s easy… You get a republican across the table from a democrat and in a bipartisan way, you fix it, it’s been done before.”

That was it. His promised specific answer to fixing social security was to “fix it”. Perhaps I am I the only one who wanted a plan, an idea, a solution outline – heck, even an outlandish one like spending $300 billion? And he got a total pass on that answer. Thanks Tom.

We could have shaved 80 minutes off response times. Iraq? You fix it. Iran? You fix it. Economy? You fix it…

Wait, I think I could be president too.

Ah yes, that makes more sense. So hard to keep track of all those billions.

RE the "that one" slip, do people really think it was such a big deal? Seems like everyone's picking up on it, but I didn't think it was any worse than a typical heat of the debate moment, just part and parcel of ninety minutes of talking off the seat of your ass in front of a 50 million people. Maybe you could say there was a very subtle racist subtext, but it didn't feel premeditated to me...

I wish the media would jump on him for the stupidity of his ideas, rather than this ambiguous and meaningless statement...

McCain’s call for an across the board spending freeze on everything but the DOD and DVA is just plain nutty. The first time he said it, I also dismissed it as a spontaneous response, and did not take it literally. But then he said it again last night, without any new qualifiers. Whether this is a literal proposal or not, to me this shows a complete lack of understanding of 1) what the federal government actually does (he’ll still need Federal OMB, for one, and probably the post office too) and 2) what the impact of freezing the salaries of an entire sector of people would do to our already crappy economy. I wish Obama would respond to this more forcefully.

@Jake. Yeah, I agree that it's a minor point. I think it's being picked up on because it reflects the narrative that McCain is a mass of seething resentment which bursts into the open in ways that he can't control and which damage his own efforts.

Marc Ambinder pointed out today that he uses the phrase on the stump as part of a longer spiel that involves a "not this one but that one" back and forth, and that it doesn't come off wrong when done properly, so he probably just tried to shoehorn it in without realizing that it wouldn't work.

I made a That One/O'Biden wallpaper this morning.

I made a That One '08 sticker, too.

Your apostrophe's facing the wrong way, Mr. Moon Pie.

http://johnnyb-lateforthesky.blogspot.com/That One
Political sensation
I'll demean him here in this debate
That One
Black/Caucasian combination
Let's see if I can stir up hate
That One's link to terrorists just might do
You know McCain but, Obama, just who are you?
That One...voting for more spending
Who votes for pork more than the rest?
If you suckers haven't guessed: That One, son
Ooh, my, ratchet up the tension
When I smile and point and mention
He's That One