Obama's best moment last night

Confucius said, "He who throws mud, loses ground."

Okay, I don't know if he really said it, but it certainly sounds like something he would say. I heard it on the Bill Press show this morning, and I got a good laugh out of it.

McCain certainly did his share of mud slinging last night, and at one point, when questioned about his overwhelmingly negative advertising by Bob Schieffer, he even had the temerity to strongly insinuate that had Obama agreed to his demands for 10 town hall meetings, he wouldn't be running so much negative advertising! I found that to be just incredible, and the media largely seems to be trampling that point on the way to interviewing the most famous plumber in America. (My prediction of that quickly and sadly came true; before the debate even ended last night, Drudge was pimping video of Obama and Joe the Plumber on his site. Much more on Joe a bit later.)

The video above was by far Obama's best moment last night, when McCain finally demonstrated that he has the guts to make the wild and stupid ACORN and Bill Ayers accusations to Obama's face (I'll give him some miniscule credit for that). But what was really effective was Obama's response:

In fact, Mr. Ayers has become the centerpiece of Sen. McCain's campaign over the last two or three weeks. This has been their primary focus. So let's get the record straight.

[...]

Let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. If I'm interested in figuring out my foreign policy, I associate myself with my running mate, Joe Biden or with Dick Lugar, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or General Jim Jones, the former supreme allied commander of NATO.

Those are the people, Democrats and Republicans, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House. And I think the fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Sen. McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me.

To channel George Tenet, that was a slam dunk. I would have preferred an even stronger response, but then again, Obama came off sounding and looking very, ahem, presidential; I hate that term, but sometimes it really is apropos.

Me? I would have called out McCain for being the desperate campaigner that he is, and I mean literally I would have called him that. I was happy that Obama refuted the lie that he started his political career in Ayers' home. What's more, I don't really care if he did, either.

I would have liked it even more if Obama had thrown another name in McCain's face. As I wrote yesterday, in the 1960s and 70s, G. Gordon Liddy was every bit the terrorist that Ayers was (and quite possibly worse). But, in the end, it's probably better that Obama didn't lower himself to McCain's level of desperation.

h/t Crooks & Liars for the video & transcript