'Substantive' Press Is Taken for a Spin

[Commentary] Polls Friday night may have indicated that Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) won the presidential debate, but Kurtz believes Sen John McCain's campaign won the spin war afterwards. What was equally striking, inside the massive media tent, was that some of the journalists who profess to want an elevated debate on the issues -- which is precisely what they got, courtesy of moderator Jim Lehrer -- seemed unusually interested in style points. Perhaps the debate's sober tone -- lacking such memorable one-liners as "There you go again" or "You're no Jack Kennedy" -- left the journalistic handicappers searching for a more personal way to score the session. They disdain the predictable partisans who show up afterward, but these advocates -- from Madeleine Albright and Rudy Giuliani -- didn't lack for attention.