It was a lifeless, exhausted, drained

and dreary Obama we saw tonight

I've seen it before when he is tired,

but this was his worst performance yet

He seemed crushed and unable to react

There is no disguising the fact that he wilted, painfully

It was a lifeless, exhausted, drained and dreary Obama we saw tonight. I've seen it before when he is tired, but this was his worst performance yet on national television.

He seemed crushed and unable to react. This is big-time politics and he's up against the Clinton wood-chipper. There is no disguising the fact that he wilted, painfully.

Obama has also shown a failure to be resilient in this grueling process. He has to survive and even thrive under this assault if he is to win. He failed tonight in a big way.

As in nearly every previous debate, Clinton came off even better.

Obama is no slouch on substance, but (at least to me) he doesn’t seem quite as confident--or make arguments about policy in what I would think are the most persuasive way.

It was Clinton, for instance, who stood up for taxes on the grounds that it’s an “investment,” one that ultimately benefits the entire citizenry: “you've got to look at the entire economy. And from my perspective, yes, taxes is a piece of it.

"But you've got to figure out what is it we would invest in that would make us richer and safer and stronger tomorrow, which would be helping everybody.”

Like almost everyone else who saw the debate, I thought Obama was flat and off-balance for most of the night.

His answers were usually correct if lacking in conviction the first time through. But he frequently made the mistake of doubling back and undercutting himself--the kind of thing people do when they're exhausted.

On the dubious capital gains tax question, for example, Obama's first impulse was basically sound--he suggested that, if a lot of rich hedge fund managers are going to re-classify income as capital gains to exploit the lower tax rate, then, as a matter of fairness, it makes sense to raise that rate a bit.

(Simply prohibiting the re-classification would be a more precise way to serve the same ideal, but let's not quibble...)

The problem was that Obama got tangled up on unrelated issues like the mortgage crisis as he kept talking--and as Charlie Gibson kept insisting (incorrectly) that cutting capitals gains taxes raises revenue. He should have quit while he was ahead.

By contrast, Clinton was generally on her game. She seemed energetic and answered authoritatively if a little glibly at times.

Obama was right to point out, for example, that she's trying to have it both ways by accusing him of raising taxes to shore up Social Security, while at the same time suggesting she'd have a 1983-style commission study the problem--the kind of group that's very likely to recommend his proposed lifting of the payroll tax cap.

But, obviously, the real story of the night was the crazy gauntlet of questioning ABC put Obama through.

The first half of the debate felt like a 45-minute negative ad, reprising the most chewed over anti-Obama allegations (bittergate, Jeremiah Wright, patriotism) and even some relatively obscure ones (his vague association with former Weatherman radical Bill Ayers).

My immediate reaction is that there's a huge double-standard at work here, but not the one you'd think.

It's not that Hillary didn't get her fair share of tough questions tonight (she didn't, but there have been plenty of debates where she's been ambushed and Obama's gotten off easy).

It's that, when Hillary gets mauled by moderators and opponents, voters generally feel sympathetic to her.

Most people--even the skeptics--feel like they know her, and we don't like seeing people we know treated unfairly. But when Obama gets ambushed, I think the effect is more damaging.

He doesn't have the same longstanding relationship with voters. And when you hear unremittingly negative things about someone before you've fully formed an opinion, it tends to affect how you see them.

Keeping the score card, there's no way Obama could fared worse.

Nearly 45 minutes of relentless political scrutiny from the ABC anchors and from Hillary Clinton, followed by an issues-and-answers session in which his anger carried over and sort of neutered him.

A lot of stuff that Obama doesn't want Pennsylvanians to think about were the subject of fairly detailed questions.

Obama's supporters are already blaming the "establishment" -- that is, the powerful institution of the mainstream media -- for the tone of the debate.

This sets up a blowback scenario wherein his supporters will rally to his defense and lash out at the media very loudly. But Obama's going to be the next president of the United States, maybe.

The most powerful person in the world. And questions about his personal associations, his character, his personal beliefs, his statements at private fundraisers -- the answers to these questions tell us a lot.

The artificial distinction between politics, personality and policy doesn't exist in this league, and if you're uncomfortable with it, then change the rules or don't run for office.

But let's stipulate, for a moment and for the sake of argument only, that the ABC moderators were tone-deaf: that doesn't excuse Obama's performance.

Obama's supporters like to see him fight back against the Man... witness his quick response to "bittergate."

Tonight, it seemed as if he was surprised by the pace of the questions and all the air was gone from his answers. There was no fight.

This is the way it ends, not with a bang but a whimper. If Wednesday night's fizzle in Philly was indeed the last debate of the Democratic primary season between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, it will be remembered for, well, not much of anything.

Broadcast to a prime-time network audience on ABC and devoid of a single policy question during its opening 50 minutes, the debate easily could have convinced the uninitiated that American politics has all the substance of a Beavis and Butt-Head marathon.

If the debate was a dress rehearsal for the Oval Office, then the job of a 21st-century president primarily consists of ducking gotcha questions.

As Obama rightly complained, deflecting a fatuous question about his seeming reluctance to don an American-flag pin:

"This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us from ... figuring out how we get our troops out of Iraq and how we actually make our economy better for the American people."

This was not an evening that will shimmer in Obama's memory book. Facing a new-guy-on-the-block hazing from moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, Obama at times displayed a whiff of petulance at the steady assault of questions about the controversial sermons of his former minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his Chicago social connection to Bill Ayers, a semi-unrepentant alumni of the Weather Underground.