Now who doesn't get it?

NOW WE UNDERSTAND, even if John McCain does not. With sweeping analyses of Iraq, health insurance, and the economy, Barack Obama swept McCain into a political box in last night's second presidential debate, a box that President Bush built.

Obama deftly turned a McCain attack from the previous debate upside down. McCain repeatedly said Obama did not "understand" a whole lot about the world. Last night Obama said, "Senator McCain in the last debate and today again suggested that I don't understand. It's true. There are things I don't understand.

"I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us. That was Senator McCain's judgment and it was the wrong judgment. When Senator McCain was cheerleading the president to go into Iraq, he suggested it was going to be quick and easy, we'd be greeted as liberators. That was the wrong judgment."

And that was after McCain essentially conceded that Obama is getting better advice on the economy than he is. When moderator Tom Brokaw asked both candidates whom they would appoint as the next treasury secretary, McCain said, "A supporter of Senator Obama's is Warren Buffett. He has already weighed in and helped stabilize some of the difficulties in the markets." McCain did follow with an additional name of one of his economic advisers, former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman.

But all that did was allow Obama the biggest softball of the night. Obama simply said, "Well, Warren would be a pretty good choice, Warren Buffett, and I'm pleased to have his support."

Odds are, that with states moving in his way, Obama himself won even more support last night.

Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com.