The All-American Presidential Forum On PBS: A Brief Review

** The word I heard most often: "invest," which means -- "spend taxpayer money" to...
** John Edwards knew the subject matter cold and the audience appreciated it.
** Mike Gravel was on his game. (Seriously -- no joke).
** The Democratic candidates seemed to endorse the idea of "tax fairness" without calling for changes to the federal income tax.
** Judging by the level of applause only, Barack Obama was not the "winner" -- but debates are not his format, and many of his answers had nuance that the white candidates did not muster. Anyway, why assume that the black candidate would automatically be the winner?
** Hillary Clinton did well. And she received the evening's only standing O.
** Joe Biden alternated between hectoring and preaching -- a strong night for him. Nice to know about his AIDS test. And that Barack Obama was tested with his wife Michelle, thank you, and not with Biden.
** Bill Richardson seemed unusually quiet, but he proved that he'd read moderator Tavis Smiley's book.
** The focus on criminal justice reform was new, but the candidates were short of solutions.
** Jim Jordan's going to kill me, but, um, Chris Dodd was the whitest guy up there. Sorry Dodd-dudes.
** Wouldn't it be fun to see the Republicans answer the same questions?