The oddest moment in last night's debate, which I haven't seen discussed anywhere, was an inexplicable insertion by Jim Lehrer after the candidates had given their views on "the single most serious threat to the national security of the United States." Kerry said, unequivocally, that it was nuclear proliferation; Bush tried to spin this as "weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network," and said that anti-proliferation was part of a "multiprong strategy" to make the country safer. Lehrer followed up with this:

Mr. Lehrer: Just for this one-minute discussion here, is it—just for whatever seconds it takes: so it's correct to say that if somebody's listening to this, that both of you agree—if you're re-elected, Mr. President, and if you are elected, the single most serious threat you believe—both of you believe is nuclear proliferation.

Mr. Bush: I do—in the hands of a terrorist enemy.

Mr. Kerry: Weapons of mass destruction, nuclear proliferation.

It looked to me like Lehrer was trying hard to get the candidates to say that their positions on nuclear proliferation—or at least on the seriousness of the threat—were identical. Certainly, a lot of viewers may have emerged with that impression. In fact, their answers were considerably different: Kerry said that fighting nuclear proliferation would be his number one priority; Bush that it was one of multiple "prongs" in the war on terror.

I'm not sure what Lehrer was trying to do here. Still, it bugs me, because this is an issue where there is, for once, a clear difference between the two candidates. It's also an issue that could single-handedly sway a lot of undecided voters. I'm especially sensitive about this, if only because I work about a hundred yards from where Seventh Avenue meets Broadway—an intersection which is used, for the sake of vividness, in almost every scenario of a nuclear bomb going off in the United States. (You can only read so many hypothetical case studies of a nuke going off in Grand Central Station before you start to take it personally.)