The debate: you all saw it. Didn’t the frontpage liveblog session go well? Other excellent liveblogs included Laura McGann’s yeoman coverage from the Peanut Bar & Grill in Anchorage and Megan Carpentier’s 123,000-page view dispatch from Anna Holmes’ couch in Queens.

Substantively, Ezra Klein’s take matched my own. Palin flubbed a few things — Gen. McKiernan’s name, for instance — but far surpassed her disasters with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. The more troublesome problem for her was that at several important points (health care, mortgages, AfghaniPakistan), she repeated talking points without apparently understanding what they meant. Contrast that with Biden’s disciplined performance. Not correcting her on McKiernan’s name was a really wise move — the press would have hit him for condescending to her — and the force of his command of detail matched with his moving story about the death of his wife and daughter made it clear that Obama picked the right vice president. When both candidates exceed expectations, it frees the debate to be judged on the merits. That’s why the CNN and CBS polls judged Biden the winner.

My big big gripe. These two things cannot coexist: the McCain-Palin insistence on deferring to ground commanders in war and the McCain-Palin insistence that the "surge strategy," as Palin put it, is necessary in Afghanistan. As I reported after McKiernan’s Wednesday press conference, McKiernan, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, unambiguously rejects the idea of an Afghanistan surge and of a "Pashtun Awakening." (I understand that Keith Olbermann cited my stuff on his post-debate wrapup. If so: thanks!) This is why I named my band The Surge: the surge isn’t a strategy anymore, it’s a mystical, alchemical potion believed to have mysterious conjuring abilities. Its effect has been a kind of unintended mania. Perfect for a rock band, dangerous for a war.