Tweet twits: Death by a thousand smiles Comics feast on US presidential debate

IT WAS death by a thousand smiles: The first presidential debate, on Wednesday night, was perhaps the most genial exchange of enmity in memory. President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney did not just spar over tax policy and deficit reduction, they fought to see who could keep a look of amused, there-you-go-again contempt for the longest number of minutes.

Wary of split screens on CNN and other networks, Romney managed, despite a dry throat and some rapid blinking, to keep a choirboy smile pasted on his face while Obama spoke; Obama was quicker to drop his bonhomie and adopt the look of a long-suffering headmaster enduring the excuses of a bright student he is going to expel.

Theirs was a glaringly public confrontation that looked oddly intimate and personal. And that may help explain why tens of millions of people tuned in—there is nothing else like it on television. It’s not a gladiator fight or a boxing match or the Super Bowl; it’s not a quiz show, a singing competition, a beauty pageant or a finale of “Survivor.” If anything, these confrontations look more like a dispute in couples therapy: Neither partner can really win, but either one could get rattled and blurt out something unforgivable.

That scale-tipping moment didn’t happen.

After an opening handshake that included a fake-friendly double arm grab, Obama and Romney were politely, unfailingly hostile, both men as attentive to body language and demeanor as to substance. There were not many personal jabs, but Romney did manage to work in a line that sounded rehearsed: “Mr. President, you’re entitled, as the president, to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts—(laughter)—all right?”

He sounded more spontaneous when he reacted to Obama’s opening mention that the debate coincided with his 20th wedding anniversary. Romney joked that it was surely the most romantic place Obama could imagine, “here with ME.”

There were moments when both men inadvertently slipped into the quirks they were supposed to suppress. Obama, known for acting a little superior and blasé about his opponents, soon began scribbling notes while his rival spoke, looking down and avoiding eye contact, even with the camera. At times he winced as if his opponent was causing him indigestion, but he didn’t return fire and never mentioned “47 percent,” let alone Romney’s houses and planes.

Romney had an easier time acting like he was pleased to bring boardroom intensity to the discussion; Obama couldn’t stop himself from looking an- noyed not to have the podium to himself, like lecturers do.

Romney still seems to believe in the rules of the country club. In one of the Republican primary debates, he famously turned to the moderator for help when he could not stop a rival from interrupting. (“Anderson, Anderson.”) On Wednesday, he again beseeched the moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS, for an intervention.

Obama was less deferential; when Lehrer tried to speed him up, Obama said, “I had five seconds before you interrupted me,” and went on and on.

Overall, it was civil, interesting and not at all exciting. It certainly did not look like a historic encounter. Yet the first black president shared a stage with the first Mormon presidential nominee in a television event disseminated on almost every imaginable digital avenue—even Hulu caught debate fever .