Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales lamented a boring debate in Nashville, and tried to begin on a nonpartisan note that neither candidate "gave a particularly electrifying performance," but Shales eventually offered an electrically negative take on McCain's "snarled" and "mean old Scrooge" description of Obama as "that one," repeating the hypersensitivity of Jeff Greenfield at CBS:

During the debate, McCain made another of his seemingly demeaning, nasty references to Obama. Describing legislation that had been backed by President Bush, McCain rhetorically asked, "Guess who voted for it?" and then answered his own question: "That one," he said, gesturing toward Obama. On CBS, commentator Jeff Greenfield thought "that one" would be "the major headline sound bite" of the debate, which goes to show, in part, how insubstantial the debate was.

But the snarled "that one" also contributed to McCain's image as a kind of mean old Scrooge, not so much a battle-scarred warrior as an embittered one. "Intemperate" is an adjective often applied to him, and again McCain demonstrated why. He also was perhaps the more relentlessly repetitious of the two men -- though Obama trotted out many a rerun from past appearances -- and was guilty of addressing the audience with his old standby phrase "my friends" at least 15 times in the 90-minute session.

Shales didn't offer any harsh criticisms of Obama, but he was not a fan of Tom Brokaw's Commander of the Clock routine:

The biggest wet blanket on the debate stage, however, was moderator Tom Brokaw, who also played a kind of military role: Commander of the Clock. Time and again, the NBC newsman inflicted frivolous rules on the candidates that only served to frustrate true debate and the kind of give-and-take that a "town hall" format supposedly encourages. At least twice, Obama started to answer one of Brokaw's questions only to have Brokaw call instead on McCain, which was rude and embarrassing.

Exactly what the rules were remained unclear, even though Brokaw explained them at the start of the debate. He called for "discussion" periods that seemed only a minute long; what kind of a "discussion" is that? If a discussion really did threaten to break out, Brokaw got grumpy and called it off. The least important thing on an occasion such as this are a bunch of arbitrary rules concocted by the debate organizers (with the counsel of both parties, Brokaw insisted).

Brokaw looked old. McCain looked old. Obama looked young.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center