QUICK RESPONSE TO THE DEBATE

I think the president won this outright -- but I worry that the press is now so invested in the idea of Romney as the latest and greatest New Thing that it will be declared a draw. Believe me, if the first debate had gone better for Obama, this one would have been declared an Obama rout, with Romney apparently struggling to adjust to his new foreign-policy-moderate software -- he agreed with Obama's foreign policy more than with his own previously stated foreign policy positions. But the media narrative may turn this into a tie. It wasn't a tie. Obama was far more impressive.