First, he forced her to acknowledge that Obama could win against McCain.  Her whispering campaign to the superdelegates has all been: "He can't win the General.  I can."

Well Stephanapoulos publicly made a liar out of her one way or another.  Either she was lying when she said.  "Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  I think he can."  Or she is lying to the superdelegates when she tells them he can't.  A lovely game of heads I win; tails you lose on the part of Stephanapoulos, who after all knows the lady well.

By the way, isn't that the type of thing... I mean in tone and the triple, definitive "Yeses" that is so typical of her when she is cornered and cornered she was.  Remember her response when asked if she would continue to take PAC money.  "Yes. Yes.  Yes  will."  She insisted.  As I said, the Stepan... knows the lady well.

Second, all those Gotcha questions in a sense inoculated Obama for the General.  All those things are out in the public domain now whereas before they were, except for Wright and bittergate, in the right wing whispering chambers.  Somehow seeing all the garbage issues trundled out and seeing  that they really didn't quite take may make them somewhat harder to play for effect in the General.  Anyone who is convinced against Obama by those issues probably would not have voted for him for other reasons in all events.

Third, let's admit it.  Obama did not shine last night. He is rarely at his best in the debate format.  But that's generally OK.  He is not running for debater-in-chief as the hillary supporters forget as they crow about what a better debater she is.  He looked downright uncomfortable.  Ill at ease.  Well most people would when they are in the middle of a mugging.  BUT he now knows exactly what public muggings are going to feel like and he can prepare for them all. Frankly, I don't think they will happen again. I think the Obamanation is taking care of that little matter right now. BUT if they do, then his answers do need to be crisper, cleaner, more definitive.... They will be.  Practice makes perfect.  This was the dress rehearsal for the General.  So in a funny way Step... was helping to prepare him.  Here is what it is going to feel like.  Here is the type of questions you are going to get.  Now you and your buddies get together and clean up those answers.

Fourth, subliminally Obama got sympathy from fair minded people.  It was a slugfest of three against one.  He was pummeled.  He was on the ropes... or to mix a metaphor and get sort of hyperbolic, he was being lynched or crucified... as I said... hyperbolic.  BUT he showed that he didn't like it but could take it and take it with some grace without really getting down in the gutter with the lot of them.  Surely Step... knew that was what was going to happen.  He's watched the man presumably a while now.  And you can bet your bottom dollar, Step knew Hillary well enough to know that she would join in the pummeling instead of trying to call the media attack dogs off with any call to fairness.

Fifth, Hillary may have "shone"... and I'll admit I have never seen her answers better and less blathering.  BUT.  She stood there and was enjoying seeing Obama being pummeled, lynched, crucified.  And rather than being appalled by it, she joined in the fray. Didn't she remind you of a little girl, jealous of her brothers, standing bye and getting real pleasure out of Daddy jumping all over them, while saying:  "But I am a good little girl, Daddy..."  Considering how utterly abusive her Goldwaterite father was (throwing the toothpaste cap into the snow if they forgot to screw it back on and making the kids go out into the snow to hunt for it).  Yah that kind of behavior builds character in a child and we got a really good look at the character it built in Hillary.  And her deep, deep trouble is that she has never looked at that abyss in her.  She has identified with and turned into the aggressor.  Just as she has morphed in Karl Rove,II.  Her motto has become:  "That which you really hated when it was done to you, make sure you do unto others."

So we have much to be grateful for.  People who are perplexed by Obama's ability not to have his candidacy destroyed by Swift boating call him Teflon Obama.  Well so was Reagan.
Or, looking back at his Senate race where the oddest things broke his way in an amazing fashion... a blog for another day for those who don't know the story ... maybe, just maybe there is going to be something "providential" in all of this.  OOOps... does that make Obama seem too messianic?  How about just decent enough and intelligent enough that enough people will see it and take a risk on someone with those qualities as we face very difficult times.