Frank Bruni writes:
Of the various debate formats, the town-hall configuration is the one that’s supposed to tamp down conflict and muffle fireworks. Not Tuesday night. From the opening minutes, Denver’s pacifist was Long Island’s pugilist. In moving east from the Rockies and away from a first-debate performance that had pundits mining their thesauruses for synonyms for “sleepy,” President Obama found his pep and his punch. Above all, he found his ability to say “liar,” or some approximation of it.
