Oh man, what a snoozer!  I'm glad I didn't watch this -- I Tivo'd it and and feel no pressure to watch it...

The setting was the first Democratic presidential debate of the 2008 campaign, a surprisingly sedate and meandering affair, filled with as many moments of awkward humor as memorable insight into the qualifications of the candidates or the policy differences among them.

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, the junior senator from New York, the two most closely watched candidates of the night, did not tangle at all. They were as likely to address each other politely by first name as to discuss differences between them.

It fell to their rivals to take cuts at them, and even those were modest.

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In Debate, Democrats Show More Unity Than Strife

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY

Published: April 27, 2007

www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/us/politics/27dems.html

ORANGEBURG, S.C., April 26 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was professorial and emphatic as she spoke Thursday night about health care, Iraq and whether Wal-Mart was good for America (a “mixed blessing,” she decided).

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, by reputation a dynamic performer, was reserved and cautious as he talked about a donor with a shady past, how he would respond to a terrorist attack on American shores and his biggest mistake (not doing more to stop Congress from intervening in the Terri Schiavo case, he said).