I don’t know. Maybe it’s because this is something new for a President, but his loose attitude at Leno last night was a little bit much for me. Just as it was refreshing to have a President break that austere facade that we have grown accustomed to seeing from the Oval Office, I was a little uneasy that the leader of the free world was yucking it up on a talk show. And as for his comment about the Special Olympics, it was absolutely insulting and another in a line of gaffes from the Obama/Biden combination.

It seems to me that the President hasn’t really evolved from that campaign mode into the leadership role that he needs to assume. He needs to stop worrying about whether or not people like him and get back to swinging the hammer at against the “Washington-as-usual” crowd. Then you have the inherent bias against the Republicans where if a Republican President had visited Leno he would have been universally panned and if he had made the Special Olympics comment he would have been told to resign from office.

It just made me uneasy to have the President on late night television when there is so much crap going on in the country that need strong leadership right now. You can read an even better description (with links from around the blogosphere) about what President Obama’s appearance on The Tonight Show means at Fausta’s Blog.

Does that make any sense?

Yet another reason why you can’t trust a damn thing you read or hear from the media these days. I had a different view of the debate altogether.

First, I think that each candidate won, but in different areas. For example, Palin was much more likable while Biden was much more of a diplomat. Palin was more down to earth while Biden was more or less the typical Washington insider. Yet Biden appeared to know more on the issues while Palin appeared to only look at the big picture stance on them. What the biased media cannot understand is how each of these stances is a win for the respective candidates.

Palin needed to appear informed on the issues in order to rally the Republican base. She did that. Biden needed to stay away from him common gaffes to energize the Obama campaign. Mission accomplished. That’s not to say that everything Senator Biden put out there was fact, because it certainly wasn’t, but he did manage to stay away from sticking his foot in his mouth.

All in all, I thought the debate was oddly reserved and yet pleasantly collegial. There were no severe barbs thrown between the two candidates as each was carefully treading historic ground. A bit too bland for my liking. Hey, did you know that nearly 70 million people watched the debate the other night? Amazing. Now the stage is set for McCain vs. Obama 2 on Tuesday night. McCain won the first debate and he needs to hit a homerun in order to move the polls in his direction.

Yet at this point with Obama up in all of the polls one has to wonder whether or not it even matters how well Senator McCain performs in the final two debates. He can knock it out of the park both nights and the media will still crown Obama the winner and the popular support will still go in his direction. Is this race still a winnable one for McCain?