The NPR Debate

Sister Mary Ellen at The Devine Democrat did a "live blog" forum, with some truly great comments (my own were short).
Well, that was an improvement. NPR took an audience-free, topic focused format and allowed all the candidates (minus Richardson who was repatriating a Korean war vet's remains) time to go beyond sound bytes. While there were no home runs, everybody came away sounding like a huge improvement over shrub. Hillary sounded slick, Barack was tentative at first but got better as the debate continued, Edwards continued his populist message, Joe and Chris both sounded smart and experienced, Dennis was Dennis, and Gravel finally got to talk.
The debate was limited to 3 areas: Iran/Iraq, China/Trade, and Immigration.
On Iran/Iraq: Clinton was the most hawkish, Obama stumbled a bit but sounded solid on engagement, as did Edwards. Biden emphasised his experience, as did Dodd. Kucinich and Gravel took the strongest anti-war positions (as expected), but were both too much "I told you so" rather than how to fix the mess.
China/Trade: Everybody agreed on the need for more regulation enforcement, but the amount of "leverage" was divisive. The nuance between the candidates was quite interesting.
Immigration: Bah! I swear, beyond Gravel, they all fell into the trap of this wedge issue. If I could tell the Democratic candidates what to say on immigration it would be very simple: Restore the funding that shrub has cut from INS so that the LEGAL immigration system can work, and illegal immigration will decrease dramatically.
Anyway, here's the link (transcript not up yet):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16843353