This sounds odd. Bloomberg reports that Barack Obama, the king of the teleprompter, is “willing” to debate John McCain at Town Halls during this campaign season. Presumably, there would be no teleprompters available to tell Obama what to say at such forums, so agreeing to such a format would be a high risk gambit for the Democrats' presumptive nominee.

But has he in fact agreed to such shindigs? A little parsing of the Bloomberg report is in order:

“I think that's a great idea,'' Obama, 46, told reporters in Bend, Oregon, today as he campaigned ahead of the state's May 20 primary. "Obviously we would have to think through the logistics on that, but to the extent that should I, should I be the nominee, if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that's something that I am going to welcome.''

Reading carefully, you’ll note Obama left himself two possible outs. First, he raised the red flag of logistics. Next, he declared himself eager only to debate “substantive issues” with John McCain. As we’ve discovered the past few months, the Obama campaign's definition of “substantive issues” is ever constricting and most certainly does not include anything that makes Obama uncomfortable or that might otherwise fall into the constantly burgeoning “distraction” category.

Obama does poorly at debates, and is a weak extemporaneous speaker. His campaign is surely aware of these facts. In other words, I would caution you to not get overly excited about the prospect of Obama and McCain touring the country in Lincoln/Douglas fashion.