From Fresh Air from WHYY, on National Public Radio
One Debate, Two Very Different Conversations
By Geoff Nunberg
When you consider how carefully staged and planned the debates are and how long they've been around, it's remarkable how often candidates manage to screw them up. Sometimes they're undone by a simple gaffe or an ill-conceived bit of stagecraft, like Gerald Ford's slip-up about Soviet domination of eastern Europe in 1976, or Al Gore's histrionic sighing in 2000. Sometimes it's just a sign of a candidate having a bad day, like Ronald Reagan's woolly ramblings in the first debate with Walter Mondale in 1984.
But President Obama's flop was more puzzling....
I have no idea what the man was thinking. But one thing that struck me about five minutes in was that he didn't know which TV show he was showing up for.