I have to say, this is a very good take on the 9 o'clock debate

I guess it's sort of a pigs-flying moment for me to be praising a Frank Bruni NYT column, but then again, the one I'm praising is today's, in which he confesses he never imagined he'd call FNC admirable:

It was riveting. It was admirable. It compels me to write a cluster of words I never imagined writing: hooray for Fox News.

Maybe it takes someone from his orientation to see more objectively just what the proceedings did to Trump's position:

And the questions that the moderators asked weren’t just discomfiting, humiliating ones. They were the right ones, starting with a brilliant opener: Was there any candidate who was unwilling to pledge support to the eventual Republican nominee and swear off a third-party run?
Trump alone wouldn’t make those promises, even though the moderator who asked that question, Bret Baier, pointed out that such a third-party run would likely hand the presidency to the Democratic nominee.

And thus, in the first minute of the debate, Trump was undressed and unmasked, and he stood there as the unprincipled, naked egomaniac that he is. He never quite recovered. His admission of political infidelity was the prism through which all of his subsequent bluster had to be viewed. 

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“When did you actually become a Republican?” Kelly said to Trump after another savage recitation, this one of his many past Democratic positions. She was his appointed slayer. She visibly relished the role.

The whole thing is a worthwhile read.