Taken altogether, I can't imagine too many minds were made up by the debate last night. I wouldn't say it was boring, but it certainly was even, and contained no shockers. I heard one pundit opine that Obama had succeeded in making his case for commander and chief, and McCain had successfully made his case against Obama as president.

I remain unsatisfied with the candidates' energy discussions, and Obama added another burr last night, when Jim Lehrer pressed both candidates on the initiatives they might have to forego or delay as the result of the financial bailout.

When encountering crap such as this from the other side of the partisan divide, I try to put myself in their shoes, or perhaps to envision a situation in which I'm guilty of the same practice and imagine how they might feel.

This time, I can't, though you are certainly welcome to help me through my myopia, if you see it.

Many readers will remember the "coincidental" circumstances in the primaries that one of the sham fronts of the coal industry sponsored the debates and hardly any questions were asked, among hundreds, about how to solve the environmental issues facing America and the world.

Now, we're going to have only three presidential debates, and I want to do my little bit to ensure that doesn't happen again. I'd like you to, too.

I've heard it said several times that no matter who wins the election, we're going to have a cap-and-trade system that will put a price on carbon emissions, because both candidates support it. But I struggle to believe that McCain will actually be willing to see energy prices rise through an act of government — even if it would begin to reshape the nation's energy use away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources.

Of apparently more certain agreement are both camps' endorsement of nuclear.

Everyone knew that Dick Cheney and Still President Bush were in bed with the oil industry, but some of their underlings took the phrase — and their oil industry contacts — much closer to their bosom.

You can't make up this sort of stuff.

It is pretty tough to excel in a judgment-rated endeavor when you're expected to excel, and that's the situation Barack Obama was in last night — the foundation of all that has grown up in the past four years around him was his keynote speech at the Boston convention.

Even against such high expectation, I thought Obama gave a very good speech last night.

I loved when he said that the election was not about him, but about us. Damn right.

I'm just flummoxed by those who see the Republicans on the winning side of the energy issue, because they are for offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR. Those positions are wrong, wrong, and wrong.

So would you spend $55 million without expectation of return? You know, if you made billions in profit and could afford it?

Photo by Rolf Oeser for the New York Times

I wrote in June about the German city of Marburg, whose mayor and council voted to require every building to have solar panels. At the time I applauded it, though as is so often true, there is more to it than I grasped at first.

For more than a year, I've been basing my enthusiasm for Barack Obama — particularly compared with his craven competitors Clinton and McCain — on his potential, and on his potential willingness, to lead.

Now that he has reversed his position on offshore drilling, I get to see if I'm willing to follow. So far, anyway, I'm in.