It's over, the last closing statements have been made. Both closings were solemn without being somber.

I'll write more over the next day or so, but my take is this: initial reaction will place them as essentially a tie. But things like the OBL lie and the Roe v. Wade cut-off of the moderator will turn that opinion against Bush and towards Kerry over the next few days.

"[Faith-based initiatives] unleashed the Armies of Compassion"

What. The. Hell. Is. That?

But then, Kerry followed up with the lovely, "I think we have a lot more loving of our neighbor to do." Yeah baby!

Dude, WTF?

Bush just totally cut-off the moderator in mid-question to answer. It seems that he answered the question that was going to be asked (well, for some values of the word "answered"). But geez man, let the guy finish.

And no, he didn't answer the question. The question was "Do you want to overturn Roe v. Wade?" The answer has nothing to do with a litmus test for judges.

And he is awfully fond of that phrase, "a liberal senator from Massachusetts."

OK, a bit past the halfway-point. Looks pretty even in terms of general performamce, except that several of Bush's blatant lies are going to come back to haunt him over the next few days. Expect to see that old film clip at least a few times.

Bush has jumped in a few times out of order, and hasn't gotten called on it. The chuckling is still creepy, and he's still much more fidgety when Kerry speaks than vice-versa.

Here's a link, from a March 13, 2002 press conference transcript on their own website:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html

Dude, try to limit your lies to those not provable on your own office's web site.

Update: Better still, here's a segment of video.

The chuckle Bush just made leading into the question on rising healh care costs was just plain scary.

The final debate has begun. C-SPAN2 is doing the split-screen thing again, and again has adjusted the relative centering of each candidate so that they appear to be the same height. I guess, as a tall person, I forget that this sort of thing can be an issue to people.

Neither person has wasted any time attacking the other. But Bush is also off to a bad start. Kerry has called him on his statement about not being so concerned about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. He was way too glib about trying to laugh through his answer, to make it look ridiculous. Unfortunately for him, he said it on tape (looking for a non-blog link to the quote, a real news source link).

Bush is still having trouble with the tendency to smirk and fidget. He's just plain trying too hard.