NP: John Cage, 4'33" (dance remix)

So if Robert Novak, who interprets everything far to the right of how it actually happens, says Kerry won the debate by a hair, does that mean that, in reality, it was a blowout? What's more, Novak goes on to say that a knockout punch might have backfired, so he's saying Kerry actually did exactly what he needed to do, yet he's portraying it as a negative. Which is why I ask the question.

I've only just begun to sift through the post-game analyses, but this bit jumped out at me:

The additional problem for Kerry was his vote to go to war in Iraq and then his opposition to it. He never successfully resolved this, as Bush continuously pushed hard.

Giuliani said the same thing on The Daily Show, and I don't know that I've ever seen Jon Stewart more openly incredulous. Kerry did address this, forcefully and repeatedly. I don't know what else he could have done to deal with it, to be honest. But the game is afoot to make the case that what happened is, in fact, not what happened, and this is where the fun starts.

If by "fun," you mean "partisan spinning that flies in the face of what actually happened right in front of 50 million people."