So says NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, via Newsbusters:

(Videotape) SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): Defeat it. Couple of points. One, if I’m president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that and I know how to do it. I will get that done.(End videotape)MR. GREGORY: Andrea Mitchell, that’s a pretty clear contrast.MS. ANDREA MITCHELL: Oh, absolutely. And, you know, there was the crisp, immediate, forceful response by John McCain, clearly in a comfort zone because he was with his base. And Barack Obama, taking a risk in going there but seeing an opportunity. And a much more nuanced approach. The Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because that – what they’re putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.MR. GREGORY: Right.MS. MITCHELL: He seemed so well prepared.

McCain’s answer, “defeat it” was in response to the question on evil and whether we should “ignore it, negotiate with it, contain it or defeat it?” Senator Obama came up with his own option, as Andrea Mitchell might say, a more nuanced answer. We should confront evil ”squarely”:

One question struck that exemplified the tale of two candidates, and potentially could have been a commander in chief moment if both candidates had been on stage.
Among the questions Warren’s posed Saturday night was how the candidates would deal with “evil” during their respective presidencies.
“Should we ignore it, negotiate with it, contain it or defeat it?” the pastor asked.
“Defeat it,” McCain said without flinching.
“If I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that and I know how to do that. I will get that done,” McCain added decisively, quickly turning the topic to the war on terror–his strength. “No one should be allowed to take thousands of American, innocent American lives. Of course evil must be defeated…we are facing the transcendent challenge of the 21st century–radical Islamic extremists.”
McCain went on to cite al-Qaeda’s use of a mentally disabled suicide bomber last year as an example of “pure evil” and kept the focus on foreign evil.
For his part, Obama, who often answers questions in a way that allows you to get a glimpse into his thought process, acknowledged the premise before responding to the query.
“Evil does exist,” Obama began acknowledging the premise of the question as he ticked off the evils of genocide in Darfur, inner-city crime and child abuse. “I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, you know, we are not going to, as individuals erase evil from the world. That is God’s task. but we can be soldiers in that process and we can confront it when we see it.”
Obama then diverted a bit and focused in on the importance of showing “humility” so the U.S. does not perpetrate its own evils.

That’s refreshing because I always assumed Senator Obama was more interesting in confronting true evil from an angle, and everyone knows that never works.