Did CBS end the debate early?

Politico said: "CBS ends Democratic debate with seven minutes to spare" ("CBS brought in the second Democratic debate seven minutes under time... The candidates began their closing statements with more than 10 minutes to go until the scheduled 11 p.m. conclusion"). And various more incendiary sites said things like "Democrat debate so boring CBS ended it seven minutes early."

But I think it was planned. Look at the transcript. The moderator, John Dickerson, was doing commercial breaks like clockwork throughout the 2 hours. He even said "We've got to take a break or the machine breaks down." After that, he set up the "final segment," which wasn't "closing statements" (as Politico put it), but a focused question that precluded a canned statement: "What crisis have you experienced in your life that suggests you've been tested and can face that inevitable challenge?" When that was done, Dickerson didn't say good-night or act as though they'd ended early. He said, "All right, back with some final thoughts in a moment."

What followed was very weird, but obviously planned. With the candidates still on stage but the debate now "in the books," Dickerson brought out Major Garrett to report on the CBS "partnership with Twitter," which made it possible to identify "the most-talked-about moments for each of the three candidates." What got the most tweets?

It was Hillary Clinton, "when she defended her integrity on campaign contributions and mentioned 60% of her donors are women." I imagine there were lots of tweets of the ooh-Hillary's-mad variety or "Ouch!" Bernie Sanders's moment was "I'm not a socialist compared to Eisenhower." And Martin O'Malley's height of tweetability was also taking a shot at someone not on the stage, the phrase "immigrant bashing carnival barker Donald Trump." The candidates stood there smiling as the Major delivered the results. O'Malley, who seemed boyish throughout the debate, smirked and gave a thumbs-up. Yeah, I'd like to see him cop that attitude when Trump is there to punch back.

For some reason, CBS decided it would be cool to do a partnership-with-Twitter dance and that Major Garrett was the guy to twirl with Twitter. The candidates didn't opt to leave the stage. They put up with the absurd theater of saying who won.

And by the way, when I heard Major Garrett say that Hillary "defended her integrity on campaign contributions," my immediate outburst was "Assumes a fact not in evidence!"

Another debate, this time with only 3 — Democrats, scrambling to adjust their message, post Paris.

1. We shall see if anyone makes a big move.

2. My son John is live-blogging, here (and will probably have much more than I will).

3. Clinton is asked if the Obama administration underestimated ISIS.

4. Sanders still believes climate change is the greatest threat.

5. "Is the world too dangerous a place for a Governor who has no foreign policy experience?" (Dickerson's questions speak for themselves. There is no answer O'Malley can give.)

6. The seething, roiling backdrop is distracting me. I thought I saw the shadow of the land shark creeping up on Hillary.

7. Bernie Sanders says ISIS and al Qaeda want to take the world back "several thousand years," but that would be long before the birth of Mohammad.

8. Hillary made a point of repeatedly saying "jihadi."

9. "The business model of Wall Street is fraud." Bernie Sanders.

10. Debate over. My prediction at item #2 above is very apt.

11. John writes: "Sanders's closing statement is evocative of Larry David's impersonation of him: 'We need a political revolution! . . . Turn off the TV! . . . Please become a part of the revolution!'" When I heard him say "Turn off the TV," I thought it was going to continue: "So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"

"Kids are like rookie literary critics, always on the hunt for sentimentality. The camera becomes a worrying signifier to them..."

"... that tells them that they are engaged in something that is good for them or Meaningful. They don’t want to be engaged in any activity that is worthy of being photographed."

John Dickerson applies himself assiduously to the task of analyzing why his children, once so unselfconsciously vulnerable to the camera's inspection, became impossible to photograph as they turned adolescent.

Interesting quote — isn't it? — the way he takes himself out of the vignette. The "worrying signifier" — the camera— is in the hand of a human being, the father. And the meaning of the camera isn't merely that they are doing something "Meaningful," but that the father sees meaning in what they are doing. When they were younger, they lacked the ability to think about the father's mind, and now that they have acquired the great power to imagine things from the perspective of another, they object. Is it that "they don’t want to be engaged in any activity that is worthy of being photographed" or that they demand control over what their now-conscious selves mean?

The idea that Biden shouldn't run because he won't be able to answer the question "Why are you running?"

I think that's the point of this Slate article "Joe Biden’s Big Question/Why are you running?" by John Dickerson. Key paragraph:

But if Joe Biden runs, it will be a character campaign against Hillary Clinton. That doesn’t mean there won’t be specifics discussed about wages and health care and the U.S. role overseas. But at its heart what will have gotten Biden in the race and what will animate it will be character—both his own and the perception that Clinton’s isn’t strong.

And he can't come out and say that — right? — so when he's asked the inevitable question he'll have to use that story about his son's dying wish. But that's not a reason why we should vote for him. And Beau didn't tell him to get out there and destroy Hillary, but only to go ahead and pursue your decades-long dream. And that's not a reason that explains why we should vote for him — because he's always wanted it and his son, who died, backed him up. It has to be that Hillary's no good, and that will have to be his message, the message he won't be able to come out and openly admit. That's what I get from Dickerson's piece, which I read as pressuring Biden not to run.

And yet, I don't think it's obvious that Biden can't put together a campaign that's basically anti-Hillary but manages to keep a veneer of positivity constructed out of the death of Beau.