Everybody has analyzed the debate this way and that, so we won’t belabor the point, except to say this: We think Barack Obama did pretty well. And while we don’t think John McCain did well, (that creepy smile scares children!) it was, by no means, a blowout.

Here’s our free advice to the Democratic nominee, worth precisely what he’s paid for it: Stop saying McCain is right about stuff. Stop saying you agree with him. Did you notice McCain didn’t throw Obama even one such bone, the entire debate? Hell, McCain didn’t even look at Obama, much less pay him a compliment. And when McCain was talking about Obama, it was to say Obama didn’t understand things.

Obama had some good lines: He said crony capitalism had failed; he reminded McCain of his asinine statement that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong,”; he said tax loopholes mock McCain’s claim that American businesses pay the second-highest taxes in the world; he said his “liberal” voting record was just a response to George W. Bush’s radical agenda; he threw the “bomb Iran” song back in McCain’s face; and he stood by his guns on meetings with foreign leaders without preconditions and the fact that he’d violate Pakistan’s borders if it meant getting Osama bin Laden.

But the missed opportunities were legion! When McCain said Obama didn’t know the difference between a “tactic” and a “strategy,” Obama had a great opportunity to say: “Sure I do. John McCain is lying about my record right now as a tactic, in service of his overall strategy to divert attention from his sorry record and create a fictional version of mine. How’s that, professor? Did I get it right?”

Bam.

When McCain was bitching about earmarks, including Obama’s, why couldn’t the good senator from Illinois have said something like this: “Saying all earmarks are bad is one of the stupidest things John has said tonight, although it’s still early. Earmarks can be good, such as building a children’s hospital, or an electric transmission line, or to fund a community program that helps people find jobs, or they can be bad, like the ones that John’s running mate has sought for Alaska since she’s been governor but has lied about since being nominated to become vice president.”

Bam.

McCain tried to put Obama on the defensive, with this: “So let me get this right. We sit down with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and he says, ‘We’re going to wipe Israel off the earth,” and we say, “No, you’re not.’? Oh, please.”

To which Obama could, and should, have said this:”Damn straight, John. We look him in the eye and we tell him that if he continues on that course of action, he lays the seeds of his own destruction. It’s a hell of a lot more effective than hoping he searches YouTube for that clip of you molesting a Beach Boys song. By the way, Brian Wilson called. He wants an apology.”

(To be fair, he kind of did say that at another point, so good for Obama.)

Toward the end, McCain said this: “We’ve seen this stubbornness before, in this administration. To cling to a belief that somehow, the surge has not succeeded, and failing to acknowledge that he was wrong about the surge, it shows, to me, we need more flexibility in a president of the United States than that.”

Obama’s possible reply? This: “John, it doesn’t matter if I cling to a belief that you think is wrong, because that doesn’t hurt anybody. Meanwhile, this unnecessary war of aggression, begun with lies, and which, by the way, you supported, has killed more than 4,100 U.S. soliders and thousands of Iraqis for no damn good reason at all. And you to cling to a belief that says we should stay there for up to 10,000 years? That belief is dangerous and will hurt people. So let me propose a new metric for the American people to decide this election: Vote for the candidate who won’t kill your military sons and daughters because of a belief.”

We’re just saying, there’s some options out there for Obama.