Confident, dynamic, in control, charming. The George W. Bush we know and love (while others know and hate), the one on the firetruck with the megaphone, the "wanted: dead or alive" Bush, and the solomonic stem-cell decision Bush too -- That George Bush was back tonite.

Not that Senator Kerry did a bad job; not at all. He was calm, organized, forceful at times. Paradoxically for the Gnomon, we thought one of his best answers was on abortion. The dilemma he described as a Catholic-but-liberal-democrat politician seemed heartfelt (wrongheaded though it may be.

But, bluntly, Bush was better. He joked, he winked, he took charge, he connected with the audience. He explained himself and his policies clearly and decisively (except for that one little excursus on the Dred Scott Decision...). He refuted Kerry at every turn: this time Kerry was the one repeating his talking points ad nauseum -- even the very phraseology he used in the first debate. Bush was tied to nothing. He was, in the truest sense of the word, Presidential.

This is what the President had to do. The momentum is his once again, and the election is now his to loose.