They should have been sitting down for the first hour. The civility Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama showed in their Las Vegas round table last week and in the second hour of the Myrtle Beach debate tonight bracketed a standup slugfest that did neither of them credit.
Particularly ugly was Clinton’s attempt to tar Obama with Chicago slumlord Tony Rezko and particularly slippery was Obama’s trying to pass him off as a client for whom he had worked for a few hours. His relationship with the man who is under indictment in a federal corruption case is much more complicated than that (more about this here).
But the lowlight was the pummeling Obama took from both Clinton and John Edwards for voting “present” on many occasions in the Illinois Legislature. This attempt to make him look indecisive was coming from people who did not hesitate in October 2001 to cast votes that allowed George Bush to invade Iraq.
Perhaps standing on their feet makes the candidates testy. The organizers of the next debate might consider a format that encourages them to chill out by reclining on chaises longues.
Cross-posted from my blog.