The Big Night.(Philadelphia primary debate)

Watching the death match between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been riveting but severely draining, because, in addition to having to witness what has become a very unsporting and drawn-out spectacle, we've had to do some wrestling of our own--with our identities, our loyalties, our consciences. That internal struggle ought to have been exciting--it's been a long time since we had such an opportunity--and it has been exciting, but I know hardly anyone who hasn't also been made a little crazy by it. Crazy, depressed, tense, furious, and sometimes hopeful, though using that word is itself nervous-making; "hope" has become a hot-button word, as has "change." This political season, these are words that can start arguments. We're now in a situation that seems like the punch line of a joke told by a self-satisfied Republican on his way to the 2009 Inauguration. If you're for Clinton, a friend or relative will tell you that she's been nasty, ruthless, untruthful. If you're for Obama, a friend or relative will tell you that he seems smug, and has shown some troubling judgment. Well, some people say, that sense of entitlement she has--it's repulsive. To which the counter is: Yeah? Well, he obviously feels entitled, too--why else is he running? And on and on it goes, regarding differences both trivial and significant, among people who are basically on the same side. It's agony, especially if you're one of the damned souls who want Clinton to win but think that maybe she shouldn't and don't want Obama to win but think that maybe he should.

I was dreading the Philadelphia debate; with the Republican side of things long since wrapped up neatly, the focus has been on the Democratic duo's every sock hole and loose button. Only one good thing has come out of that, and, in a very unlikely climate, it happened to be a great thing: Obama's profound speech about the truths of race and history. Now here we all were again, in the same building where he gave that speech. Like almost everyone who saw the debate, I was incredulous at the pointlessness and lack of substance of most of the questions that were asked, but I finished watching with a sense of relief. I thought it had gone pretty well, I thought it was civilized, and the first headline I saw about it, later that night on the Web, in the Times, didn't make sense to me: "Clinton Uses Sharp Attacks in Tense Debate." I saw the whole thing, and I wouldn't use the words "sharp" or "attacks," and I might not even say "tense."

Sitting through a worrisome intro that mimicked the frenzy of reality shows--kinetic graphics, loud percussive beats, canned audience hubbub, and a male voice practically shouting "Twenty debates . . . forty-six states . . . twenty-nine million votes . . . three thousand delegates awarded, but still no nominee and the sparks are flying"--I expected a kind of "Debating with the Stars" atmosphere. But what we got was all wrong in a different way--a sort of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" Charles Gibson, ABC's nightly-news anchor, moderated, and was greasily avuncular and patronizing; if ever Gibson was in danger of raising the questioning to a level that might actually yield something useful for viewers, George Stephanopoulos, ABC's ...