We'll have three separate threads going tonight, mostly because it's the easiest way to handle technical issues.

• If McCain cared so much about the 9/11 Commission, why did he skip the vote on the implementation of the Commission's recommendations?
• Again, McCain thinks Iraq is about winning or losing. No. It's about figuring out the best potential outcome at this juncture without continuing to send tens of billions of dollars to the country.
• The night's third gaffe, which I missed: McCain not only mispronounced the name of the leader of Iran, he mispronounced the name of the Pakistani leader, too.
• McCain rambling and rambling and rambling about Georgia is not becoming.
• McCain: Let's get in a Cold War with Russia! (Except I don't believe we'll get in another cold war...)
• The night's second gaffe: McCain still maligning Spain. Really?
• The night's first gaffe: McCain can't pronounce Ahmadinejad. Whoops!

Earlier updates below the fold...

• Very good from Obama... The greatest move to strengthen Iran in the last few years was the invasion of Iraq.
• Would McCain's "League of Democracies" include Spain, which is thoroughly democratic, because McCain certainly went to lengths to malign Spain just this month.
• League of Nations!
• John McCain holding a pen... Bob Dole revisited?
• This campaign is about the future, not the past. John McCain talks about Vietnam, and when he speaks about Iraq, he does so in the language of Vietnam -- winning versus losing, etc. This is not about the past. This is about the future, figuring out the best way out of Iraq. McCain may be stuck in the 1970s, but the American people are looking forward to a better 21st century.
• Obama is making the argument that Afghanistan and Iraq are linked. Yes. But make the case more explicitly. The reason why we do not have enough troops in Afghanistan -- battling the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden -- is that the group led by Bush and McCain pushed for war in Iraq.
• "Senate inside baseball." That's exactly what the McCain campaign is about. I said it earlier, and I'll say it again: McCain is sounding like a Senator, Obama is sounding like a President.
• Very good. Obama does underscore that this was a failure of ideology, not of strategy. What's more, Obama goes back and hits the immense cost of the war.
• McCain is really defending the rationale for the Iraq War? Really?
• McCain has clearly not learned the lesson Iraq, that this was a failure of strategy. No. This was a failure of ideology. Invading countries unilaterally and preemptively DOES NOT WORK. Will Obama say this?
• Again, Obama hit's the right not vis a vis Bush, that McCain has supported George W. Bush 90 percent of the time. Don't let up even as McCain tries to push back.
• FINALLY. Obama talks about the cost of Iraq -- $10 billion per month -- as a cost that must be cut. Obama needs to continue on this avenue, even though McCain is trying to dissemble and move in another direction. Obama needs to disregard the distraction that is nuclear power and continue to hit the cost of the War, an issue upon which he has the strong support of voters.
• Here's what it comes down to -- John McCain is sounding like a Senator while Barack Obama is sounding like a President.
• McCain is really defending corporate tax cuts in response to Obama's populist attack about how such cuts don't help the middle class? Really?
• McCain says that there are "people" under indictment for corruption related to earmarks. Yes. Those "people" are called "Republicans."
• Great response from Obama on the earmark attack, noting that McCain is calling for $300 billion in tax cuts for corporations -- which don't even come close to being counteracted by $18 billion in cuts to earmarks proposed by McCain.
• If McCain is against earmarks for research of bear DNA, was he against the money Sarah Palin requested for research of seal DNA? (And, for the record, I have seen no indication that Americans care about earmarks...)
• Memo to Jim Lehrer: If Obama and McCain aren't itching to go after one another -- which for some reason they are not -- simply asking them to address one another ain't gonna do it.
• Presumably at some point McCain will go on the attack, no? Because he's seeming awfully defensive so far, defending his shenanigans on the bailout bill, as well as for having called for the resignation of Chris Cox.
• So McCain just said that he went back to Washington to fight for House Republicans? Is that really presidential?
  
• Why can't John McCain look at camera?