Although most observers agreed that Hillary Clinton won the first two presidential debates, she did so for the most part by sitting back quietly and letting Trump roast himself like the oversized ear of buttered corn he is. When your opponent is willing to blather on about special prosecutors and cyber, the logic went, there is little need to say anything more. During tonight's face-off, however, Clinton was noticeably more somber, forceful, and direct, abandoning that canned "Trumped-up trickle-down" line and often talking through her opponent's frequent interruptions to make sure she got her points across. She jeeringly called Trump a "puppet" of Russian president Vladimir Putin and accused him of crying "crocodile tears" over jobs he outsourced to China. This was her last opportunity to pitch herself to voters, and she had clearly decided beforehand to make the most of it.

In the moments when she went on the offensive, Clinton was clear, concise, and devastating. One of Trump's stupidest rhetorical saws during these debates has been asserting that Clinton is responsible for a given government policy because she has been in government before. (Do a quick search of the last debate transcript for "30 years" to see what I mean.) Yes, a man who wants to be president apparently believes that a single politician is theoretically capable of unilaterally implementing every policy he or she supports, and if a politician did not accomplish this while in office, the only explanation is that he or she did not really believe in that policy after all. It's an absurd line of reasoning refutable by any middle-schooler who has read the Wikipedia article on "separation of powers," but still, when Clinton pledged tonight that she would take a stand against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Trump went right back to it.

I ask a simple question. She's been doing this for 30 years. Why didn't you do it over the last 15, 20 years? You were very much involved — excuse me, my turn. You were very much involved in every aspect of this country, very much.

Previously, Clinton has responded to this nonsensical word vomit by gently pivoting to her time in public service, and then moving on to some other subject. This time, though, she brought the receipts on Donald Trump's comings and goings during the same period.

Let me just talk briefly about that. You know, back in the 1970s, I worked for the Children's Defense Fund, and I was taking on discrimination against African-American kids in schools. He was getting sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination in his apartment buildings. In the 1980s, I was working to reform the schools in Arkansas. He was borrowing $14 million from his father to start his businesses. In the 1990s, I went to Beijing and I said women's rights are human rights. He insulted a former Miss Universe, Alicia Machado, and called her an eating machine. And on the day when I was in the situation room, monitoring the raid that brought Osama bin Laden to justice, he was hosting The CelebrityApprentice. So I'm happy to compare my 30 years of experience, what I've done for this country, trying to help in every way I could, especially kids and families, get ahead and stay ahead, with your 30 years. And I'll let the American people make that decision.

Dang. Dang. There's no way of knowing for sure whether Hillary Clinton prepped for this debate while listening to "Ether" on loop for 24 hours, but spiritually, yes, she definitely did this. On the night Trump chose to go full Alec Baldwin on us, Hillary Clinton was there to be presidential as hell.

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