North Koreans are how much shorter than South Koreans?

So now we've had our first debate. We watched it on Fox (Fox 11 Los Angeles, not Fox News on cable), which was interesting for the post-debate spin. Of course, McCain won according to them. The point that one guy brought up was that McCain referred to Obama as "Senator Obama" and Obama called McCain "John". The "analysis" was something about how that would hurt Obama amongst people from the South.

The spin is pretty gross; I think it would be more responsible for presenting networks to have no "analysis" directly after the debate. Just show the debate and cut back to regular programming. The "analysis" will be there on the cable news networks and the internet if people want to hear it.

What matters more, though, is the public perception of who won (not that the debates made a difference in 2004; John Kerry, according to public polling, "won" the debates). The polls that have come out indicate an Obama win-- 51% vs. 38% in the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll. The CBS poll had it at 39% (Obama won), 24% (McCain won) and 37% (tie). The best news for Obama could be the following: 60% of respondents said that Obama was ready to be President, which is a 16% improvement over pre-debate polls on the same question.

I can't wait to see how Fox will frame the Palin "win" next week.

(In case you missed it, here's a link to a transcript. Also, Jim Lehrer is fantastic; most of these network media honks could learn a lot from his professionalism and integrity. Luckily, we get Gwen Ifill, another real professional, for the VP debate. Hard to imagine people like Lehrer and Ifill are in the same profession as hack asshats like Gibson, Kristol, Stephanopoulos, etc).