What is the biggest threat to the US: Kerry came out very quickly and confident: nuclear proliferation. This answer is representative of Kerry tonight: confident, knows his stuff, and then as quickly as he can, hits Bush hard. Kerry: “we’re serious about containing nuclear proliferation.” I almost feel like Kerry is saying the world “nuclear” a lot to contrast with bush’s pronunciation.

Whoa! Bush said “nuclear,” not “nucular”! But Bush’s response is on proliferation, with shades towards terrorism. Bush actually just brought up Khan in Pakistan, how he stopped them–but look at what happened to Khan, immediately pardoned, and now very little is different there. He also brought up Libya.

Kerry hit again on how Bush let North Korea and Iran slip, Bush hit back on multilateral talks, of course ignoring that Kerry wants both multi- and bilateral talks.

Now the question is on Russia and Putin, but this debate is mostly over, it looks like there will be no big developments from here on.

Update: Kerry hit Bush, Lehrer handed Bush a present, allowed Bush to say how much of a “calm guy” he is in a conversation setting. A few last punches to the face.