I’ve watched all three debates. In each one, I have been frustrated by John McCain’s failure to make the points that matter. He did better in the third debate. But, as others have noted, he did not do what he could so easily have done: Knock Obama out of the race.

In the first debate, I expected McCain to come out with the obvious: He had introduced a bill to bring Fannie and Freddie under control; the Democrats had opposed it. Instead, he said nothing to differentiate himself from Obama. I chalked that up to McCain’s sense of honor. While negotiations were still in progress, he would not feel free to make partisan remarks.

In the second debate, I nearly blew a gasket. Here is Obama accusing McCain of causing the crisis by voting for deregulation, and McCain says nothing in response. I figured Obama must have something on McCain in that regard.

So I spent a of couple days looking for the cause of the meltdown. I had heard about the government pressuring banks to make loans to poor people who could not afford to repay them. But I doubted that the amount of money involved could cause such a spectacular collapse. Did deregulation play a part? Was the charge of Wall St. greed substantive?

Stay with me for a few paragraphs, while I lay the groundwork for the point of this diary entry.

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As others have observed, the debate last night was pretty intense. I was glad to see that Barack Obama was able to inject a little humor into a tough situation.

How’s that? You missed the joke?

You must have heard it. It was about health care. The punch line was, “The government will reduce your costs.”