Snow White Survives

"Hillary Clinton got cuffed around pretty badly . . . but that kind of thing is bound to happen when a candidate acts like she's already measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.And, in response, she didn't always perform well. At times, she seemed testy and defensive.

"None of this may matter in the end, of course, since relatively few Amercans are even watching these '07 debates, but clearly some of her rivals (and the press, as represented by Tim Russert) signaled that they have no intention of allowing Hillary to simply bask in her front-runner status. And the danger, for Hillary, is that any poor responses delivered under fire might well be used as video fodder by the GOP at some future date."

At the New Republic, Noam Scheiber gives props to the man from North Carolina:

"Edwards has a knack for coming off earnest and high-minded even when he's knee-capping an opponent. When Tim Russert mentioned his charge that Clinton's mismanagement of health-care reform in the '90s had left tens of millions of Americans uninsured, he seemed genuinely offended. "I didn't use the word 'mismanagement,'" he said. "I think Senator Clinton actually worked--as first lady at that time--very hard for health care." He then promptly explained why having a "bunch of Washington insiders who sit around tables together" to plot the fate of the health care system was a horrible idea.

"Obama, by contrast, seemed as reluctant as Edwards was eager to emphasize differences with Clinton."

Or maybe it was a non-event. That's what Steven Stark basically says at Real Clear Politics:

"Nothing memorable happened, which in the long run helps Hillary Clinton, who continues to put in competent, if passionless, mistake-free performances. The star performer of the evening was Tim Russert, whose probing 'Meet the Press' type questions elicited more information and disputes between the candidates than any of the previous efforts by other hosts. (Maybe he should be the candidate in 2012.)

"Though there were exchanges that drew distinctions between the various candidates and Hillary, no one really went after her (save Russert). Barack Obama was the same as he has been before, which is the identical pose that has gotten him into a position where he's now far closer to the pack than he is to the front-runner. He needs more passion and more vision if he's ever to make a move and distinguish himself from the field. He's calm and reasoned to a fault and it's no longer helping him."

At American Prospect, Dana Goldstein is less enamored of Russert:

"I can't help help but focus on Tim Russert's oddly confrontational and . . . rather inane moderating style. From his repeated, failed attempts to trip up Hillary with references to her husband's administration, to his harping on John Edwards about his hair and expensive house, to his wrong-headed question about bible verses, to his obvious personal obsession with making Social Security 'solvent,' I came away from this debate feeling like very little policy was addressed."

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff doesn't use the word stonewalling, but . . .

"Hillary Clinton is trying to run out the clock. She refused to answer a number of questions -- whether she would take certain measures to fix Social Security, whether she would commit to stopping Iran from becoming a nuclear power even if it required a preemptive attack to do so, whether she would be comfortable with young children in her family reading in school about a prince who marries a prince . . .