"Mr Friends"...I'LL say it again..."My Friends" did McCain essentially capitulate last night?

"My Friends", we heard in practically every sentence that McCain expressed last night in what was billed his "last great hope" to knock out Obama. In fact across America's college campuses there is a new binge drinking game that uses the debates as their gaming compass...repeated words or phrases---both used by the Republicans. In Palin's case it is of course the word "Maverick" and in McCain's case, it is "My Friends". The trouble is that by the time the debate reaches 1/2 hour into its 90 minute set, most of those college participates are stone drunk, but of course that is the purpose of the binge drinking game.

The thing is McCain's front-loaded expectations were that he was going to prosecute Obama in person and yet he acted like the Lion in the "Wizard of Oz" when first confronting the mythical Wizard--- running away---"My Friends". McCain didn't bring any of his smears and accusations recently used in his campaign narrative into last night's debate. My reaction after the fact was that he was unwilling or UNABLE to actually speak them to Obama's face. Why? Because he and all of us intuitively knew he couldn't get away with it in front of a serious and non partisan audience like he could with a KOOL-AID drinking political rally.

Actually what really happened: Remember actions speak louder than words and in a political campaign words of candidates are actions. McCain basically CONCEDED the election last night---by his action of not speaking smears to Obama's face. McCain failed to accuse Obama of all that his VP choice now has done on the campaign stump referencing Ayers, Wright and Rezko. Basically McCain couldn't bring himself to do what his Sarahcuda can. His jabs were half-hearted repeats of his basic stump speech---My Friends but there was not haymaker blow on national national TV n prime time so in short he capitulated. So in short he is going to play the good cop/bad cop with his attack pit-bull with lipstick letting her destroy her national political reputation while he licks his old wounds. But don't take my word for this observation look at the Right wing press's reaction.

• Weekly Standard: "John McCain had a very strong debate tonight. It's too bad for him that it came on a night when Barack Obama was nearly flawless."
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• Slate: "Foreign policy didn't come up much in tonight's presidential debate; but when it did, Sen. John McCain--whose strengths lie in this realm--seemed surprisingly unsteady while Sen. Barack Obama came off as more sure-footed than he did in the first contest."

But the biggest blow was when the candidate who was "green behind the ears" landed a combination that McCain will not be able to recover. TNR's Schreiber described it perfectly:

[T] the key point in the debate when McCain repeatedly tried to point himself forward as the 'cool hand' at the tiller, appearing either oblivious or indifferent to the fact that the last three weeks have made 'steady' one of the last words a lot of people associates with John McCain. As I wrote in the live blog, "Is McCain suddenly running against himself?". (See the video here.) Let's pick it up from Noam ...

More importantly, I thought the Pakistan exchange was the moment when son overtook father in the Oedipal drama that's been a subtext of this campaign. After Obama gave his initial response, McCain pressed the absurd line that his opponent didn't understand talking softly while carrying a big stick--that he was, in other words, erratic.

Coming from a candidate whose name has been synonymous with "erratic" these last several weeks, it left McCain dangerously exposed, and Obama didn't miss with his counterpunch. "This is the guy who sang, 'Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,' who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don't think is an example of 'speaking softly,'" he said. "This is the person who, after we had--we hadn't even finished Afghanistan, where he said, 'Next up, Baghdad.'" As if to add insult to injury, Obama nearly straight-armed McCain when he tried to interrupt, underscoring not only his intellectual advantages but also his physical ones.

So as the nation's drinking game was coming to a close with the final "My Friends, McCain's campaign narrative was on the floor receiving a ten-count joining many college students in fraternities, sororities and dorms across America who were already so incoherent to hear on their collective floors.