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The Messy Desk Debate, Cont'd.

I've said that Hillary's response to Obama's concession about being sloppy was probably her best moment of Tuesday's debate. The Clinton campaign apparently agrees, since she now brings it up at almost every opportunity. (See this interview with Brian Williams--about 14:05 in--or this one on Bloomberg television.)

I stand by my original take. But the more I hear Hillary riff on this, the less I think it works outside the immediate context of Obama's remarks. She's basically making the rounds trumpeting the fact that "I intend to run the government, I intend to manage the economy," which just sounds small-bore and tedious without Obama's line setting her up. (True, she does recap the line before going into her own. But it's not particularly persuasive--people assume politicians distort their rivals' words when they relate them, which Hillary does slightly if not egregiously.)

--Noam Scheiber