Who won the debates?

What debates?

A debate is a form of organized argument -- generally a two-sided argument. While it's nice to have a debate that admits more than just two sides to an argument, the 8-sided debate of the Democrats and the 10-sided debate of the Republicans just don't really qualify as a debate in my opinion.

In both cases it's just a serious of short position statements. "Let's have a show of hands of those who believe in God". "Motherhood?"

Some of my favorite blogs have opined on the winner, but I think they're all missing the point. These aren't really competative debates, they're just showcases for the candidates.

I liked Supreme Irony of Life's take on the Republican debate.

All I can say, is that for the few minutes of it that I watched, I saw a group of old white men in a pissing match, to prove who was the more manly of the bunch.

Of the entire crowd, Ron Paul seemed the most sane.

Ann Althouse quotes a few partisan nutcases who think McCain "won" the Republican debate and says.

I thought McCain was fine. You could see he was trying very hard and seemed to have a lot of memorized lines. He had a forced tough-guy style of speaking.

I've long thought McCain has become a totally phoney twit and his performance in the little bit of the Republican debate that I watched just cinched that opinion. right after he successfully delivered his line about following Bin Laden to the "gates of hell" he smiled. Smiled. So proud of himself for getting his prepared sound byte out. What a phony. The guy is just hopeless.

Here's one of the comments on Ann Althouses blog post I quoted from above.

thought Romney did best. At this point, as a conservative choosing between the top three, there really isn't any reason not to chose Romney. Although I think all three are qualified to be President (unlike the Democrats where Obama is grossly unqualified).

What an idiot. He thinks favorably of the Republicans because they have 3 people running who are qualified to be President while the democrats have one who isn't qualified?

Huh?

Ford is better than Chevy because ever Ford has 4 tires and Chevy's don't have ashtrays in the back seat anymore?

And he can't think of a reason to not support the Scientology/Mormon candidate. No wonder with the kind of thinking this guy puts into his analysis.