Friday's presidential debate promised something more than the prepackaged, dueling oratories that pass for forensic excellence in these rarified settings. The format was altered to ensure direct clash between the candidates, the hallmark of good debating.

Moderator Jim Lehrer tried hard in the early going to encourage each candidate to speak directly to their counterpart and actually debate one another. Barack Obama regularly took Lehrer up on this invitation, looking directly at John McCain and clashing with his ideas.

However, Obama fell far short of the full potential this format had to offer. His unwillingness to fully engage McCain struck me as caught between coming across as too aggressive and the natural reluctance when a superior debater faces an unprepared and squeamish opponent.

McCain was pathetic, shifting nervously behind the lectern and timidly consulting his notes when his inability to develop sustained arguments overwhelmed him. He almost never looked directly at Obama or the camera, focusing instead on the moderator. Where was his coaching?

McCain's confused sightlines made him look untrustworthy and disengaged. His real failure, though, was his repetition of preplanned rhetoric, occasional ill-placed one-liners, and awkward recitation of narratives designed to humanize his automaton style.

He appeared befuddled about whether to show the bracelet given to him by the mother of a dead U.S. soldier. The symbolism of her understandable gesture of mourning speaks to the central area of focus for the debate: national security and foreign policy.

McCain's willingness to "do anything" so that her son did not die in vain, nor allow any American to be thus defeated and dishonored puts this country at severe risk. Spending nearly the entire Vietnam War as a prisoner of war did not prepare John McCain to lead.

The pathology produced there by inconceivable physical and psychological torture grotesquely exaggerates his feelings about honor that he projects onto this nation. His captors' dehumanization "broke" him.

I obviously have no idea what that kind of treatment can do to a person. Nonetheless, his pathology manifests itself constantly. McCain is willing to commit the U.S. to a war that must end only in victory. He is willing to remain in Iraq for 100 years if conditions on the ground warrant it.

Obama hammered McCain about his foreign policy decisions and the pitiful judgment they belie. McCain was wrong about his predictions, his tactics and strategies, wrong about the Iraqis on many levels, and wrong about the disastrous effects this war would have on America's reputation and readiness.

McCain mistakenly followed Bush to Iraq, argued Obama, away from the real front lines against "terrorism," Afghanistan. McCain's slavish devotion to central cause of his presidency -- that is, to not lose another war like the one of his great shame -- more than earns him his pejorative nickname, McBush.

McBush most assuredly believes the consequences of failure in Iraq are great. Honestly though, the costs of dishonor and death in vain are far greater for him. His pathology could destroy us all.

Obama showed not only that he was presidential and belonged on that stage. He also showed that he had sufficient knowledge and strategic acumen to successfully guide America between the horrors of "terrorism" and the perils of authoritarianism.

Nobody knows what the course ahead holds for our next president. Last Friday's debate therefore needed to demonstrate how each candidate thought, how they faced the challenges and uncertainties of a national debate.

Obama revealed himself to be a powerful thinker, one who possesses an outstanding ability to extend and develop ideas. He showed his enormous presence and serene self-confidence, while McBush stumbled along like the dangerous oaf he has become since taking center-stage in this election.

McBush cannot think beyond a few trite phrases and repetitive malapropisms and his failures in the open, less planned spaces of real debating should give us all pause. As uninspired as his delivery was, his militaristic compensation and ill-conceived displays of false bravado dominated the evening.

Obama did not entirely exploit his own superlative thinking and debating abilities. Maybe he realizes that America the Proud has become Dumb and Dumber, where accomplishment and intelligence cause average Americans to shrink with inadequacy and compensate with charges of "elitism."

Maybe he worried that argumentatively dismantling McBush might be perceived as elder abuse. Who knows? Irrespective, Obama's superior judgment and extraordinary preparation were very much on display last Friday night. He was presidential, decisive and level-headed. He showed us what America could be were he to climb this mountain.

If you were at all unsettled by the Republican offerings last Friday, don't tune in tomorrow night for what likely will be the complete demolition of that ticket. America cannot long endure another Bush. America can even less survive McBush.

Don't even get me started on Sarah Palin.

Bill Shanahan, Hays, is a former professor and debate coach.