Obama isn't the underdog anymore, and Charlie Gibson isn't rolling over for him a la SNL. Gibson and Stephanopoulos have, on behalf of their colleagues, responded to the ridicule with, as Hillary might say, massive retaliation. Obama stumbled badly with that first question about bittergate, unfortunately Hillary couldn't help herself and took it too far in the follow-up. Once again she comes off like she's using the tactics of the vast right-wing conspiracy against one of the Democratic party's own (or I assume this is the way liberals see it). It's how she's looked all night.

This is a problem that seems as though it could be easily diffused if only Hillary would say that she is more moderate than Obama. That he is too liberal, and that is why she believes she's the stronger candidate. It also would allow her to frame Obama's comments about guns and religion, his patriotism problem, the Rev. Wright issue, in a way that didn't appear simply as disingenuous posturing.

On the Rev. Wright question, couldn't Obama just say 'nobody loves this country more than I do.' He's already said that nobody's spoken out more fiercely on the issue of anti-Semitism than he has, and that nobody has been a more stalwart ally of Israel than he has, why not just say nobody's more patriotic than he is?

But for Obama this is all a distraction! Indeed, as Brian pointed out a couple weeks ago, any issue, comment, or event that causes problems for Obama is a distraction.

William Ayers, Rev. Wright, flag pin, patriotism, bittergate...and almost no health care. It's been very entertaining. And when it turned to Israel, Obama gave an atrociously vague and willy nilly answer. Of course he can't guarantee a nuclear response, but he could have, like Hillary, invoked the phrase 'massive retaliation.' He was struggling to parse the language, but who's going to hold it against him if he gets a little carried away talking about what he'd do if Iran nuked Israel. If Obama can overcome his terrible performance tonight, then there's nothing that can stop him. Because after the blowback from the left tomorrow, no debate moderator will ever dare to go after him like this again. Wiilliam Ayers? If the Factor had moderated the debate I don't think he would have gone there.

The Contentions crew has some great liveblogging here.

Update: Says Ambinder, "Keeping the score card, there's no way Obama could [have] fared worse." Read the whole thing.

Update II: Sullivan says of Obama, "He failed tonight in a big way." Yglesias Award!