While some will disagree with me, I found last night's debates extraordinarily heartening. Not only were Bush and Kerry civil to each other- even, at one point, almost friendly- but they managed to keep up that civility while hashing out chasmic policy differences. I felt like it was a substantial and nuanced enough debate to give the lie to Ralph Nader's quadrennial kvetching about Republicrats.

And while I like George W. Bush more than I did before I saw the debate- some of his positions seem a little more comprehensible now, especially his stance on North Korea- it obviously didn't change my vote. Kerry outperformed Bush, and didn't come off as smug. Well, admittedly, not that that matters. I can think of very few things that would've dissuaded me from voting for Kerry, and most of those involve things like him urinating on the moderator and such. And even if that had happened, I probably would've voted Libertarian.

I'm pretty impressed by Bush's congeniality- I was expecting him to be dismissive, and perhaps as self-impressed as he has been in his State of the Union addresses- but even though he did, as %%diary-pandionna%% has said, unravel now and then, the President didn't attack along any of the Karl Rovish lines besides the flip-flopper thing, and I truly do appreciate that.

Maybe we'll get through this election without a civil war after all.