John McCain's Vietnamese captors will activate his secret posthypnotic programming at the exact same moment that Barack Obama's secret madrassa instructors activate his.
They will then dance a magnificent tango.
McCain will speak in sound bytes and be judged the victor.
I think that Obama makes this about the bailout and presents a strong position, he will exercise real leadership before being elected (everyone else has failed) and will win the election.
I hope that he does this, and I also hope that he does it by supporting a plan at least as good as Dodd's, and I hope that he does this by stapling the whole derefulation collapse to McCain's forehead in exactly the kind of demagogic way that TLL wisely advises us to avoid.
Aside: This is why I like Yglesias.
Anyone ever make a martini with capers instead of olives? I feel like I'm going to need to drink a lot.
Lehrer's lips aren't synced with the audio. Er, rather, vice versa. Weird.
hey, can I watch this online anywhere?
That McCain is a little guy.
Obama has a 5 o'clock shadow in HD. A bad one.
Looks fine on ABC.
Huh. I'm watching on PBS. I guess the price you pay for hi-def video is funky audio.
So they say "oh, this is a foreign policy debate, but the financial crisis is an indispensable part to..." Did they think it was somehow unprofessional to make the first debate the economic one?
C-span works. Well, it's extremely shaky.
HD and fine audio on NBC.
I can see every strand of McCain's combover.
didn't Kennedy just get OUT of the hospital?
McCain sounds nervous. Of course, my wife thinks Obama sounded nervous.
McCain sounds a little shaky/nervous in parts
Um . . . JSM needed to tell us that Teddy K was in the hospital? Was he just trying to set a bummer tone? And I just heard he was back home?
"I'm not feeling so great tonight..." Coming right after the mention of Kennedy, this opener makes him sound very old and tired.
17: Ah. See, I thought I had heard that.
hey, can I watch this online anywhere?
NYT homepage, near as I can tell.
There be no 'more orange than a pumpkin' Al Gore makeup.
McC might wheeze and Barry might grunt, but neither will sigh.
Is McCain trying to throw this debate? He sounds pathetic.
Are you going to vote for the plan?
Sure, sure, whatever.
That's leadership we can believe in!
"A lot of us saw this train wreck coming." Pounce, Barry!
Take that, Norman conquest of England! The Normandy invasion in World War II was so much better! And John McCain was there!
So McCain supports holding the various agents of the crisis accountable, and increased regulation, etc?
By which I mean, say "then why didn't you favor a single new regulation in the past umpty years?"
McCain's little joke "Were you afraid I couldn't hear him?" was pretty funny.
I like this tack Lehrer is trying to take -- say it to him!
I, also, have a fundamental belief that the United States of America exists.
35: I don't know, I thought it was a little Admiral Stockdale of McCain....
Polar bears?! Doesn't he know any recent events?
The bear paternity joke is so stale, dude.
Even his pen is old!
Sweet, the gateway drug theory!
Oh, Barry, hit him back with the DNA of seals.
A lot old jokes...
Kinda flubbed that bear DNA line.
Never lead with the bear DNA joke, John.
He's going to veto every spending bill? Well, that'll take care of the deficit, I guess.
We need to get spending under control, so sure, sure, I support a $700 billion bailout plan.
$18b versus $300b! Bam! Pow! Right in the kisser!
Leherer to candidates: "Bicker, damn you!"
You guys, seriously, McCain sounds like my grandmother.
Oh, fuck you, John McCain.
Am I going to have to turn off the television again? I really go apoplectic at this bullshit.
"I didn't win Miss Congeniality"? But Sarah Palin did!
38: I love Adm. Stockdale! (Seriously, I love him. That story makes me sad.)
Was that the first real interruption of the evening?
Obama to McCain: 'I traveled all the way to Ole Miss to call you a cracker!'
/Dave Chappelle
I think McCain looks sharp. I'm disappointed.
What the hell did McC say about his pen—it's old? Dude.
Earmark bullshit. 3% of the budget. Why didn't Obama say that?
Is politicalfootball watching this debate with the color inverted? McCain is the short guy on the left of the screen.
Ah, appealing to the forum-shopping investor swing vote!
I can't stand what Leherer is doing.
Oh, hit him with the "Israeli aid is an earmark according to Senator McCain."
Wait. Obama does too. Need to turn up saturation.
Is it true that McCain's tax plan involves charging people for the expenses their employer pays for their health care? Wouldn't this raise taxes for a large fraction of Americans?
Well, sure, standing next to Obama, pretty much any Republican is going to lose the non-pastiness competition.
Oh good, Obama is hitting this point. Looks like my 67 was slightly off, but morally in the right direction.
He shoulda mentioned that the health care credit isn't going to cover a whole lot, should there be a real emergency.
John McCain, I don't really give a shit about earmarks. Find another topic. What about foreign policy?
62: The "Look at John when your talking to him" bit? It's heinous.
Absolutely, I can't wait to prepare my taxes twice!
Why is Obama letting this be about earmarks?
I hate Democrats.
America is morons.
I'm reregistering as a Trotskyist. SWP, fuck yeah!
74: exactly. I feel like my grandpa is moderating this damn thing.
Man, McCain looks like he has to take a crap.
I hope McCain keeps clamping on the flip-flop implications so Obama can tear him to pieces.
Argh, all this bullshit talk about "freeing ourselves from Middle Eastern oil." Fuck you too, Barack Obama. Just, uh, less hard.
So, Obama, you're going to have to forego some things that need to be done, but not the ones that have to be done?
Was McCain's assertion about Obama's vote a lie?
Obama just missed the chance to win the election in one fell swoop. When McCain was babbling about companies relocating in Ireland, Obama should have replied (in a suitably Presidential fashion): "You're an American company, and you want to relocate in a foreign country? Then good-bye. We don't need you. Don't let the door hit you on the ass. When I am President of the United States, I am not going to be bullied by the threats of CEOs to pick up their ball and go to Ireland."
The way they switched this from military policy (original topic) to the economy at the beginning was amusing.
85: It's a perfectly valid distinction, in keeping with usage.
86- Yes, it was based on a budget resolution that assumed that Bush's tax cuts would expire as they wre written. By that logic when Bush signed his 2001 tax cuts (written to expire in 2010 so as to obscure the cost) he also signed a tax increase on everyone.
Hey, elimination of ethanol subsidies!
McCain is all soundbites, many of them refuted. Cut spending, cut taxes, earmarks, Obama most liberal.
Defense contracts. Didn't expect that direction.
I didn't know McCain was against ethanol subsidies. I don't disagree with that.
They've given up on Iowa and Minnesota.
Isn't the answer to Lehrer's question, "it depends on how things develop"? I mean, how could they responsibly say now what they're going to have to change?
I was wishing Obama would say "Me too" to the ethanol thing.
Obama's getting the first word in a whole bunch. Much more assertive. McCain sounds extremely weak. (I'm mainly listening, not watching.)
Energy talk drives me insane. It's all soundbites, and it's all about "foreign oil" instead of global warming or an intelligent economic system with multiple energy sources. It's completely impossible to tell from anything that appears on TV or most of the print media that Obama's platform (though imperfect) is infinitely better on this front.
Probably only because Obama was forced to be for ethanol subsidies.
52 - Is it worth noting that under the McCain rules, Stockdale would have been a better president than McCain? (He was a POW for longer and, no joke, beat himself bloody so that he couldn't be used in a propaganda film about how well he was treated. I don't know how seriously philosophers take his academic work, though. He taught at VMI, yeah?
Isn't the answer to Lehrer's question, "it depends on how things develop"?
That's basically what Obama said.
How dare you bring up foreign policy in this debate, Barry Obama!
Lehrer is pushing spending cuts. Softball for McCain.
Obama finally mentioned Iraq.
Offshore drilling, nuclear power. Standard talking points.
I didn't like when Obama said "it may be we *can't* do it", as if America weren't capable of everything. It may be true, but bad soundbite.
Oh, John McCain pretends to care about climate change now. Fuck you.
Actually, the most petulant person in the room right now is Lehrer.
Lehrer, the president doesn't "rule the country", you prick.
McCain should answer "Yes, Jim, I intend to introduce a full-fledged style of fascist rule into the country."
Wow, can we move on from "But will you both admit that it's the end of the (economic) world?"?
These guys knows lots about legislative minutiae. It's almost like they're senators.
Yeah, McCain is only the second-most-cranky old man involved in this debate.
"Between families and their decea -- their doctors"???
102: except for ethanol, everything McCain has said is a pure talking point. His advertising is worse yet, all cut taxes cut spending.
"Cut waste". That's a bold new idea.
"I know spending can be controlled, because I have fought [unsuccessfully] to control it for years!"
McCain has a slight whistle. Sounds like the old pervert on family guy.
"I swear, the President hates me! I'm a Maverick, dammit!"
"I swear, the President hates me! I'm a Maverick, dammit!"
Opposition on torture, huh John? That had a lot of practical cash value.
"The lesson of Vietnam is that it's morally wrong to lose wars."
McCain: "I learned from Iraq that you should never lose."
I think I should be drinking more. As a general rule.
67: Absolutely true that workers would have to pay taxes on the value of their health care benefits.
We won the Iraq war because of McCain's new strategy. That's why Iraq is a stable democracy.
Interestingly, you can watch the debate on lemonde.fr
130 and 131 really aren't even caricatures. He honestly said that the lesson is that we shouldn't have bad strategies. No shit!
I think a word cloud of this debate would have a much bigger "billion" than any historical debates.
133: Know any good references on the cost of this for typical American families? Is this being widely publicized in swing states? If not, how can we make it happen?
Just been kicked out from the living room by my brother for yelling at the tv like we were at a movie back in Oakland. Anything interesting happen?
"John, you're talking like the war started in 2007". Great, great.
Hiccupy server tonight.
McCain got the most agitated at being associated with Bush.
"You were wrong." "You were wrong." "You were wrong." BAM!
"Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy." Great comeback, McCain.
All of McCain's smirking and shrugging and finger wiggling while O is talking is super annoying. But maybe that is just me.
WTF!@@@@@@@@@@@@
"We don't want our kids coming back here."
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
"We don't want our kids coming back here." But... but... hundred years! Thousand years!
"Let us win. Don't stab us in the back. Don't turn us into Nazis."
We are winning.
"Listen, I have taken advantage of photo ops on patriotic holidays."
"Find the bad guys, peace comes to Iraq." Deeeeep.
"Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy." Great comeback, McCain.
Wow, those words don't mean what you think they mean, John.
WTF is up with the Petraeus worship among the right? It's like they get some deep satisfaction just from saying his name.
McCain seems to have adopted the annoying Bush smirk wholeheartedly. I hope that bites him in the ass.
Obama had nothing but the highest praise for Petraus and military leadership. Of course, politically necessary, perhaps genuine.
153 - it's the MoveOn ad that made him officially their guy.
It's like they get some deep satisfaction just from saying his name.
Well, to be fair, it's pretty fun to say. Try it.
OBL may have said that Iraq is the central battleground, but maybe he didn't have America's best interests at heart when he said that, you know?
McCain says "Obama". Obama says "John". Thoughts?
"Under Senator Obama's plan, they would've been out last spring...."
Is that a bad thing?
"Didn't exceed mine"—yours may not have been reälistic, John.
God, Obama's self-control is impressive. "That's not true. That's not true." He must be angry, but it doesn't show. Or maybe he isn't angry, and I'm projecting.
I think a folksy metaphor would have been a clinching move. "He keeps talking, but all I can hear is a plumber who flooded your house twice asking for another chance."
Obama: More troops in Afghanistan.
159: Ooh, that is kind of nice!
McCain says "Obama". Obama says "John". Thoughts?
He's trying to goad McCain into punching him?
Holy fucked up history- we funded the Taliban against the Russian, old man.
Wait, McCain was talking earlier about how we shouldn't be sending so much money to foreign nations that aren't necessarily acting in our best interests, and now he's saying we have to keep sending money to Pakistan?
McCain: "Never threaten an ally, just attack them secretly."
172: That was a reference to our oil spending, not foreign aid, in order to bulk up the numbers in false comparison with government spending figures.
Obama had the right answer for the "funding the troops" thing. Back in 2004, Kerry should have said that Bush was against it before he was for it.
McCain is accusing Obama of being too militaristic.
"Waziristan." Has The Simpsons covered Waziristan.
STRATEGY. McCain knows strategy.
Marriott hotels cannot be bombed!
172: Rule number 1 of presidential campaigning: You can always have your cake and eat it too.
reälistic
I hope Lehrer asks them their position on the all-important diaeresis issue.
175: Obviously, McCain doesn't love America.
Who the hell dressed McCain? That is a terrible tie for tv.
I can't bear to listen to the debate, but I am drinking just in case. I can hardly bear to look at it.
Obama is definitely trying to goad him.
Aha! 32 to 53 is 21 thousand, not 20 thousand! McCain doesn't know anything about the army! </Russert>
Hahaha for O's line about McC's "singing songs about bombing Iran."
Obama is too haughty. It's Pakistan, not Pahkistahn!
(NB tongue, cheek)
I like how casually McCain says "this business about bombing Iran and all that".
He admires Reagan more than Jesus? Quite a change from the Bush debates.
182: Yeah, it's vibrating. Don't they check this stuff? Shouldn't McC know this stuff by now?
"Obama correctly notes that I sung about bombing Iran, but fails to note that I voted against a small troop deployment 25 years ago. ZING!"
McCain opposed a war back in the Reagan Era.
And then what he says has ... nothing to do with it.
Obama: That was a strategic mistake. Nice.
182: Maybe they can do a post-debate mini on the Moire effect.
Oh no, it's the "mention a specific American from a small town" strategy! (or is that a tactic?)
Oh, please, hold up your hand and show the bracelet!
He can't talk about the bracelet and not show the bracelet.
Oops. "Moire" isn't a proper noun. Or adjective.
Oh shit! It's the battle of the bracelets!
Once their own kid is dead, moms want more dead kids. Fact.
This little monologue is really just demagoguery, innit?
Implying Vietnam was a dishonor was a mistake.
140: Yeah, but I can't find them now on my not-so-smart phone. I'll try to remember to find something tomorrow. Kaiser Family Foundation may have it.
McCain is entirely, "Reverence for the troops."
Obama needs to reclaim it, and make him look silly for lack of substance.
I was going to vote for McCain because of he had a bracelet, but no I learn that Obama has a bracelet too, and I just don't know what to do!
McCain is entirely, "Reverence for the troops."
Obama needs to reclaim it, and make him look silly for lack of substance.
What's the main Pakistani newspaper? I want to go to their site.
Obama avoided Afghanistan photo ops. Forget that motherfucker.
Isn't the war that he opposed Granada? If you had to pick a war over the last 30-50 years that you would allow to happen willingly, wouldn't it also be granada? Is that in any way significant?
207: Thanks. I'll google it. I didn't hear about this until recently -- probably not paying enough attention -- but it seems like something worth spreading....
He's begining to get under McCain's skin. This is good.
Does McCain have anything to say other than "we're gonna win"?
Oh, good, I wasn't clear whether anyone wanted a second holocaust. But now we're clear.
I think Obama was about to administer the killing blow, but no. He said, "Nobody is talking about defeat in Iraq." I was sure he was going to say "I am talking about victory in Afghanistan."
I think that we should have an open, well-informed debate about allowing a second holocaust. That's antiquated Old Europe thinking.
Why'd McCain mention France first in a list of allies?
"significant, powerful, painful ... sanctions on Iran"
Also, I want to put this one Israeli dude I know on TV for everyone to see. He's a fierce McCain supporter because he thinks McCain will attack Iran and that this would be the best. thing. ever. His obvious craziness on this issue makes the awfulness of McCain manifest. (Nice, reasonable guy otherwise, somehow.)
Number one paper in Pakistan, or so they say.
214: It looks bad to the base to suggest it.
I'm glad to hear that McCain opposes the Holocaust.
Uh, Iran isn't a state sponsor of terror.
"Ironically," Senator Obama? I think you meant to say "Iran-ically."
I think that we should have an open, well-informed debate about allowing a second holocaust.
An excellent idea.
Centrifuges! Maybe they just want to separate the components in their OJ?
I suppose that was a coincidence, Obama's saying "Ironically" just after the word "Iran," but it was still a fun moment.
McCain is obviously full of shit, but so far I don't see anything big such as the media would latch onto lamprey-like. I'm sure I'll be proven wrong tomorrow.
Obama is trying to match McCain in anti-Iran rhetoric.
Obama is failing to keep the initiative. Partly because of Lehrer.
Maybe they just want to separate the components in their OJ?
Are you or are you not pro-pulp?
CNNHD rules. They put up on the margins this ridiculous "Analyst Scorecard" thing for their six talking heads where they can tally points scored and points taken for the two candidates. Castellanos is tallying points all the time, but Bill Bennett seems to have forgotten all about this part of the game, not marking a point since about 10 min in.
I think McC means Ahmadinejad?
Is there some particular danger involved in talking to people? Do they carry miasma?
Is McCain is 7th grade? If you sit down at the table with them, everyone else will want to be like them?
Port-port-perestroika? Your "I can pronounce Russian names" show backfired, dude.
Hah oh SNAP! Kissinger'd sit across the table.
God, I'm not even watching and this debate is boring the shite out of me.
"It doesn't mean you invite them over to tea." Beautiful.
"rogue regime". Rolls off the tongue.
Dawn is apparently also a big Pakistani newspaper. Go away, I'm no good for you.
Obama seems to be using reason. I hate that in a politician. He does seem sharper than McC. Will McC's soundbites work? I have no idea at all.
When Kissinger sits across the table, he really sits across the table.
McCains occasional grinning while Obama speaks is really unsettling.
McCain is smiling like he's got some killer counter for this line.
Better than Kissinger sitting astride the table, if you ask me.
Bill Bennett seems to have forgotten all about this part of the game, not marking a point since about 10 min in.
Maybe he put five large on the under.
Where's the nerf guns? I was told there would be nerf guns. :(
I bet sitting across the table from Spain would buy you some delicious Tapas.
245.2 is pretty much all you need to know about any presidiential debate, ever.
McCain is smiling like he's got some killer counter for this line.
Turns out not so much.
You lost with Korea, McCain, stop digging.
"I will figure out who this 'Spain' is when I have a Presidential seal."
Was he smiling in anticipation of using that bad "White House visitors list" joke that fell flat?
Sitting down across the table from someone legitimizes anything they have said? The fuck?
"Something Obama doesn't seem to understand". That would work better if McCain was more cogent.
Thanks for letting us know about not filling up your schedule, John.
I wonder if McCain can substantiate his theory of legitimation.
McCain would sit on the same side of the table. He's mavericky that way, you know.
212: Not so much Granada as Grenada. McCain likely would have supported any and all invasions of Nicaragua.
247 - Almost as unsettling as the constant old-man tongue flick thing he's doing.
The average South Korean is 3 inches taller than the average North Korean? Fun fact!
Yeah McCain really shouldn't smile. Oh, and he's getting mad: also a problem.
225: Dude, you may want to check your facts/definitions/time horizons.
So, they are mispronouncing Ahmadinejad's name consistently, right? I thought it was more like Ahmadi-nejad?
Took a real turn for the trivial back there. Secretarial contacts! Low-level contacts! Presidential contacts!
I know Henry Kissinger. Henry Kissinger is my friend. You senator are no something something what huh? Poopyface!
McCain would sit on the same side of the table. He's cuddly mavericky that way, you know.
266: Yes. He is like that creepy lipless guy at the gates of Mordor whose head Aragorn chops off. (I am a scary dork.)
So, they are mispronouncing Ahmadinejad's name consistently, right? I thought it was more like Ahmadi-nejad?
The "di" can be accented even in your formulation. But I agree that should be more like "I'm a deener jacket" than "I'm a dinner jacket".
I saw three letters when McCain said that- WTF?
The "G" was sort of in the nose bridge area.
"I know the names of the Baltic states too!"
He is like that creepy lipless guy at the gates of Mordor whose head Aragorn chops off
A delightful image -- I have an idea of what I want to watch after the debates tonight!
I can't guess how McC's weird condescending smile while Obama talks is going to play. Or is it even a weird condescending smile? Is that just what his listening face looks like?
Even I'm bored at the Russian section. Obama lost a good angle of fire by saying Georgia should be in NATO, however weakly.
McCain's been all sorts of places!
Inclusion into NATO is a natural process. Like erosion, or entropy.
Yeah, Georgia in NATO is actually a terrible idea.
Shit, I could have sat first row behind the dugout tonight but I assumed it would be cancelled. Also my wife is at the NKOTB concert so I have to watch the kids.
Also, no acknowledgment of Georgia's portion of responsibility for the conflict. So much for nuance.
I thought the first sentence of 288 was by Sifu. But then it took a turn for the surprising.
Also my wife is at the NKOTB concert
SP's family is the awesomest.
Obama just called Venezuela a rogue state? The fuck?
FUCK CLEAN COAL! FUCK YOU!
295: she's more of a New Edition kind of woman.
Off-shore drilling is a bridge. To... nowhere?
What happens after the "lead question segment"? Fisticuffs?
The format allows McCain to seem sharper than he is.
Of course I am! Hel-LO, seventh grade! I'm in CA at the moment, though. No NKOTB concert here tonight.
I would put the odds at 73 to one.
Ha, I just asked Sifu 303.
I wish O would say we're much safer now that we take our shoes off at the airport, all snarky-like.
Man, I hated the friggin' New Kids on the Block....
Do we know the candidates positions on NKOTB?
The format American Society allows McCain to seem sharper than he is.
Senator Joe Lieberman and I decided we needed a commission.
I feel much safer knowing the person next to me on the plane doesn't have any large shampoo bottles in their bag.
What happens after the "lead question segment"?
The gold question segment!
So the 'a' in Afghanistan is pronounced differently from the one in Pakistan?
Obama has to spew all sorts of shit. Nature of the operation. What's notable is how frequently he declines to do so, and also how this motherfucker must have nerves of steel to stand next to that 73 year old abortion and stfu and look reasonable.
I feel much safer knowing the person next to me on the plane doesn't have any large shampoo bottles in their bag.
The woman sitting next to me flying back from LA last week would have been better off if she'd been lugging around a few large bottles of shampoo to drink, instead of whatever the hell it was she consumed before getting on the plane.
So the 'a' in Afghanistan is pronounced differently from the one in Pakistan?
All 5 a's in those words are pronounced slightly differently, I think. GIVE UP NOW!
Students for a Democratic Initiative!
Hey, you know where al Qaeda didn't have a base in 2001? Iraq!
McCain doesn't seem to be aware of sunk costs.
If you love Patreus so much, John, why don't you marry him.
Yeah! Fuck you Mac! Veterans aren't your issue!
He just compared Obama to Bush. That's fucking priceless.
McCain just compared Obama to Bush? This is surreal.
McCain doesn't seem to be aware of sunk costs.
Any estimate on how far down this would be on any list of "Important Things McCain is Unaware Of". I'm guessing quite far.
McCain's bug-eyed look doesn't appeal to me, so I suppose it wins him votes. For all I know, he was coached to do that.
"Has the knowledge or the experience". Obama is much like Bush.
"Now that we've won the Iraq War, what next, Sen. McCain".
Actually, in 8 years I could see "Why are we afraid of nail clippers and tomato sauce?" turn into a winning political issue.
I agree with Blume that OBAMA = BUSH is maybe not a winner. Talk about attacking your opponent's strengths, though.
Honestly, I think McCain destroyed Obama. He's much better at making pithy points. (My track record in judging debate winners is horrible, though.) I do wonder how McCain's patronizing attitude is playing, though.
McCain just compared Obama to Bush? This is surreal.
And yet look, here is Wolf Blitzer and the rest of the Serious Media Taking It Seriously.
Yes, we all know that Vietnam vets were badly treated, John. Maybe something of more contemporary relevance?
Veterans love McCain and McCain loves veterans. Love, love, love.
END OF DEBATE!!!!!!
NEXT: PALIN V. BIDEN!!!!!
Senator Obama only wanted our veterans to come part way home. He would have dropped them off in some place exotic like Hawaii.
And now for the dumfuk analysis.
"John McCain's strong suit"? "John McCain's expertise"? Why can news commentators not acknowledge that no, John McCain really doesn't know everything about the world?
I was watching (actually listening) on c-span and now I've turned it off; no dumbfuck analysis for me, thanks!
Are we done already?
I imagine McCain brazened his way along with the absurd talking points (Victory in Iraq! I am an Outsider! My Opponent is a Republican!) and Obama was so busy remaining Not The Angry Black Guy that he didn't land many punches.
Off goes the TV. No need to watch the opinions percolate through empty heads, the mindmeld consensus will be in print tomorrow.
Ugh, my wife wants to watch the dumbfuck analysis. LA LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING.
Brokaw is saying that McC made a lot of hits and O missed a lot of opportunities.
Why can news commentators not acknowledge that no, John McCain really doesn't know everything about the world?
They don't wish to anger the Great and Powerful Oz.
I pissed my brother off, but in the intermittent bits I saw, I thought, "America is more than dumb enough to fall for this."
CBS's room of undecideds seemed to thing Obama won, and their most positive reaction was when Obama was berating McCain for supporting starting the Iraq war.
One of them brought up the Kennedy/Nixon comparison. If we were allowed to make analogies here, I would say thats a good analogies.
PLEASE DEMS, playing "i disagree on some things but really respect you on many topics!! let's be friends!!" didn't work for John Kerry or John Edwards or Al Gore*. It makes you look weak and passionless. Quit it.
*sure he won, but the debates hurt him.
What a debacle. Obama can't make a simple point:
"John McCain is promising to cut government spending by eliminating waste. It's a wonderful promise - it got Ronald Reagan elected and it got GHW Bush elected and it got Goerge W Bush elected. They all promised to cut govrnment spending by eliminating waste and abuse. And they cut government: that got us the disaster of Katrina, because FEMA was cut; in part it got us Iraq, because the eperts at the State department were cut; and in part it got us into this financial crisis, because regulations and the beaurocrats who enforce those regulations were cut. So if you think this plan worked well the last three times it was sold to you, vote for my opponent and go for a fourth try. If you think it's time for something different, for a government that works, vote for me'
344 is in fact excellent analysis. I knew I shouldn't have watched.
Aaah! PBS is showing NPR people on camera! Don Gonyea and Scott Horsely are funny-looking dudes.
"Gonyea"? I thought it was "Gagné", like all those Canadian athletes.
357: trying to spell NPR the names of NPR personalities is a fool's errand. Just ask Aiyreha Khlahss.
Yeah, but the record for funniest looking NPR dude still resides with Garrison Keillor.
357: Minnesota, and they pronounce their names differently.
Some McCain campaign spokesperson on CBS calls Obama "ill-informed" and "wrong". Why am I watching this shit?
I was so disappointed when I first saw über-smooth Ray Suarez on television.
Obama lost a good angle of fire by saying Georgia should be in NATO,
shit, he said that? I must've dozed off. This is even worse than I thought.
Hey, is anybody watching NBC? My friend tells me the GOP has offered Giuliani instead of Palin for the VP debate? Anybody?
Obama was so busy remaining Not The Angry Black Guy that he didn't land many punches.
Sort of, not exactly. There were several points at which Obama interjected a simple "That's not true. That's not true" (purse lips, shake head) in the middle of what McCain was saying. Good. Sometimes he was able to follow up, clarify, sometimes not. But casting doubt on McCain's veracity in the viewer's/voter's mind is smart.
Though Obama looked like he was becoming actually pissed off a few times.
My friend tells me the GOP has offered Giuliani instead of Palin for the VP debate?
Huh, so, is he the new veep candidate?
366- 'tis true. Rudy claims that Obama said, "We need to lose in Iraq to win in Afghanistan."
FWIW, this is my first moment looking at the thread or anything online. McCain was AWFUL at the start - utter FAIL on a few "zingers," and general incompetence. From there on, it was generally even, with Obama doing fine but failing to land many punches. But I really didn't see McCain landing any either.
Obama's bit on Spain rocked, and McCain's retort was so weak as to not even exist.
Obama's biggest failure was failure to challenge frames. "John, I'll admit that the Surge succeeded if you admit that the invasion of Iraq was our greatest foreign policy failure since Vietnam." There were several others like that - where Obama has the marginally stronger position on the merits (because McCain is nuts), but his real strength is not buying into the BS*.
McCain's canned response to "Bomb bomb Iran" was impossibly lame. The main reason I can't believe that McCain "won" is that I didn't see him land a punch (a couple glancing blows, a few salient points that didn't hurt Obama, but made JSM look sensible). Obama missed a lot of chances (to my eye), but he landed a few hits, plus was solidly in control the whole time. In terms of demeanor, he was excellent.
* Not that I think he's a lefty on foreign policy or anything else, but I think that he fundamentally understands that DC CW is nuts, esp. on foreign policy.
Keillor is tall, maybe 6'3". He seems so short and plump.
The White Sox and Twins both are losing. Good for the Twins, relatively. The Twins are ahead by 1/2 and have two to play, Sox three to play. The Twins win if they match the Sox wins, if the Sox win one more than the Twins there's a playoff game.
Palin was not on TV with Biden. Biden is a very good spokesman if he has a time limit.
Wait, what? McCain goes on about how pleased he is to have his mavericy co-maverick new running mate, and they are talking about swapping in Rudy? No way.
NBC also fact-checked McCain's claim about Kennedy. He's out of the hospital, so there!
Seriously, I'm usually good at guessing the spellings of things, but I am like 1 for 20 on NPR personalities.
Kai Rissdahl - not even close
Lynn Rosetto-Casper - all three of these words could be spelled many ways
Tess Vigland - so close!
Ofeibia Quist-Arcton - so close!
Michele Norris - CORRECT
Daniel Shore - geez, this was embarrassing
Saraia Sarhadi-Nelson - why even bother
Bob Mondello - CORRECT
David Bianculi - wrong
David Folkenflick - wrong
Terry Gross - CORRECT - someone so dignified couldn't be "Terri"
Ari Shapiro - CORRECT - this is the only one that I couldn't think of any alternatives for.
Don Gagné - whoa, I never would have guessed that one.
Melissa Block - CORRECT
Steve Inskeep - CORRECT
Linda Wertheimer - CORRECT
Peter Sagel - wrong
Sylvia Poggiolli - too many letters
Niwali Saikaotao - oh my god, there's an X?
btw: Not a Debacle:
I saw McCain say some things that I think are provably false. Tie+media talking about the lies+ammo for next time= me cautiously satisfied.
"Gonyea"? I thought it was "Gagné", like all those Canadian athletes.
This is what all sensible people think.
I shocked my MIL this evening by calling Mara Liasson worthless. Then I kicked up to Cokie, and she practically hyperventilated. Smart woman, good liberal, but it would never occur to her that NPR would put a worthless tool on the air. When I told her Cokie had favored impeachment, she said, "Oh well, I didn't know that...." I think it made an impression. I should go to Daily Howler and print out a few pages on them.
Iris spent much of the debate having us point out the various countries on her little globe - I didn't actually think she would 'get' that that's what they were talking about (she's not a super-mappy kid like I was). She also thanked us for the "special" things we do for her - like letting her stay up to watch a debate. I love this kid.
4.5 years old today.
377 is my favorite unfogged comment in a long time. Thanks, JRoth.
377: I sometimes get the same reaction amongst my mom and her buddies by complaining about MoDo.
I did hear McCain say you could "gulag something", right? Let me go gulag that up and see.
Why don't you go gulag yourself up a clue, old timer.
Could someone explain, precisely, what the story is with the Giuliani-rather-than-Palin-story at the veep debate? Was that a joke offered up here? Or did someone actually hear something to that effect? Please to clarify for confused ari.
My relatives are passing this video around (basically "the economy is crap because Democrats force us to give loans to black people"):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5tZc8oH--o
Can anyone point me to a post taking it apart?
Wow, Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper just snarked about Palin not showing up to spin the debate. Ouch.
Melissa Block - CORRECT
I can never tell whether she says "I'm Melissa Block" or "I'm Elissa Block."
Cokie is evil. Whenever Diane Rehm comes on the air I have to switch off because it sounds like she is about to die of asphyxiation and I start to suffocate in sympathy.
On the other hand, there's Jamie Tarabay, whom I totally respect just for the substantive quality of her reporting alone and not, uh, never mind.
Wait, I misread Sifu's question. They offered Rudy to respond to the debate after Biden did his response. I didn't hear anything about next week's debate.
383: my friend said something or other about that, and I repeated the rumor here in what turned out to be a fruitless attempt to get clarification.
Could someone explain, precisely, what the story is with the Giuliani-rather-than-Palin-story at the veep debate?
I believe it's that the Obama campaign sent Biden to spin, and the McCain campaign sent Giuliani. Palin's in hiding.
Instead of substanceless gloom and doom over the talking heads, let's return to real gloom and doom. Is anything in this blartigle wrong at all, in any way?
Is Ian Welsh now on FDL, gone from The Agonist? I think he was the one I found the most readable and believable.
Has Jamie Tarabay (I got that one right too) been played by Rachel Weisz yet?
She'd better be able to do the accent properly, is all I'm saying.
Korva Coleman's name kills me. Korva=Whore in Yiddish.
What's a tawdry Italian Jersey girl like you knowing from Yiddish?
384: Via Yglesias, this is the rebuttal.
I think Henry Kissinger* should be allowed to anoint the next president. Think of the cost savings in campaign costs alone!
*My #1 Obama response hatred part of the debate. #2, Venezuela as rogue state. #3, not working "google" into the answer after McCain referred to it as "gulag". Ridicule the old fucker!
395: I'm from Deal, baby! I know Ladino, too.
379: You're welcome, ari. And thank you.
Fuckin' Mets.
Fuckin' Phils.
Fuckin' Cubs.
Fuckin' Bucs.
The last one is purely petulant. We just gave up the first hit of the game in the 6th, and it was a HR to tie. Dammit.
Biden's attack was really pithy. I think whoring yourself out to the networks every weekend the McCain and Biden have done for years really helps in the TV debate setting.
I make the debate as a draw. McCain wasn't nearly as crazy-sounding as I'd hoped.
And, uh, please assure me that Obama wasn't promising to tangle with Russia if they don't get out of Abkhasia.
I thought it was a draw, basically. Obama wins on content, but as Walt says somewhere upthread, McCain knows how to do the pithy counterpoint. I found Obama more aggressive than I had expected to find him, and that's all to the good, but McCain's a pitbull, let's face it.
McCain's no Bush, that's for sure. We're used to running the supersmart, well-informed and articulate guy against the village idiot that everyone wants to have a beer with, and then bemoaning the stupidity of the American public in not recognizing the patently obvious superiority of our own candidate. We're still running the supersmart, well-informed and articulate guy, yeah, but McCain throws that game off somewhat, is what I believe. Old man is more than smart enough to hold his own in his own way, and crazy like a fox, and he knows how to throw more than a few punches.
Foreign policy is not Obama's strong suit. If he performs as well in the next debate (where reality-based content is on his side), he'll be doing very well indeed.
Agreed: a draw. Someone on NPR just explained that both NPR and the Washington Post had an "army of fact-checkers" on duty, that both candidates were aware of this, that therefore they must both have been very careful in their claims ...
Sorta can't wait to hear whether anything comes from this army.
But yeah, McCain did a lot better than I expected him to. Bummer.
Wow. Jamie Tarabay is my new NPR girlfriend.
That's what the ear to the ground says: a draw. And a draw is a win. McCain just blew his best remaining hope.
max
['Yay!']
CNNs post-debate poll of 500 some adults showed Obama a decisive winner.
403, 406: I largely agree with some caveats. I think the most striking tv of the night was "You were wrong." So, advantage O. Also, and the talking heads are all saying this, McC needed a win, not a draw. So again, advantage O.
A draw is actually a win for McCain because people are no longer talking about his whole suspended campaign/financial crisis bailout fuckup. That news cycle was shorter than I would have liked
A draw is actually a win for McCain because people are no longer talking about his whole suspended campaign/financial crisis bailout fuckup.
Instead they'll talk about him failing to beat Obama.
max
['Oy.']
413: slow and steady crashes planes.
No, it was amazing how well he held his ground against Obama seeing as he was back in DC fixin the Bailout Crisis all week and didn't have any time to prep.
But yeah, McCain did a lot better than I expected him to.
I seen him on the Daily Show about five or six times or so, so I was already expecting him to do better than some people expected.
Get out the vote, people. Hit the pavement. No way you're going to win the punditry-propaganda war against a man like McCain. You can only out-vote him, and for sure that's the only way you're going to win.
The NYT has up a "checkpoint" that comes down pretty solidly on Obama's side on all issues. But it's all in paragraph form. I'm not sure how effective it is unless it's a list with a glowing checkmark by Obama's name for each element.
Mary Catherine, I know heebie. Heebie is a friend of mine. Mary Catherine, you're no heebie.
How many presidential debates are there going to be, anyway? I don't even know. Obama seems clearly stronger on domestic issues -- the first 40 minutes on the economy, health care, esp. the problems with McCain's health care proposal, were pretty clearly winners for Obama.
I do wonder how many people will tune in to a second (or third) debate; it's regrettable that this first debate was ostensibly on foreign policy.
538 tells me that not only does the CNN poll of 500 uncommitted voters give it to O, but also two different focus groups, at least one of which was republican led. (Of course that won't necessarily mean a thing.)
422: three.
You know how you can figure that sort of thing out, right?
There are two more Presidential debates, but the one I'm really looking forward to is next week's. Palin v. Biden. Oh, God, it's going to be a bloodbath.
What are the odds on Biden fucking up spectacularly?
427: Don't you think that at this point even Biden realizes that all he needs to do is ignore her/give her enough rope?
425: nothing would make me happier than for Google's front page to read "Goolag" tomorrow.
What are the odds on Biden fucking up spectacularly?
Small. What are the odds on Biden fucking up while Palin screws the pooch big time?
max
['I'd say about 20-to-1 in favor.']
425- You do a gulag.
Anyone seen McCain's response ad? (Released during the debate, yet somehow McCain says, "I approve this message.") They took the 3 times Obama said he agreed with McCain- even cutting off half the answer on the last one where Obama said, "Senator McCain is right that business taxes are high on paper... but there are loopholes that actually make them among the lowest in the world." This is somehow evidence that Obama isn't ready to lead. That's right, if you're not a total dick to your opponent, it means you lack the experience necessary to be President.
I kind of agree with 411. The one thing I wanted to see Obama do tonight was to hang the "suspended" campaign around McCain's neck like an albatross (or possibly a millstone). He didn't even hint at that (maybe there was a hint early on, while I was cooking dinner, but if I missed it just because I was cooking dinner, then everyone missed it). I mean, yeah, this was McCain's best chance to make progress, but this was also Obama's best chance to bury him. We're back to status quo ante, of Obama marginally ahead.
This worries me for 2 reasons: Easier for something to go wrong and cost us the election, and even if Obama wins, he'll have no mandate. Mandates are overrated, but they're not nothing. If Obama wins with 49.9% of the vote, how many Bush Dogs will happily vote and run against him to keep their red districts happy?
425: Tweetybird, I knew you were going to say that. The question was a segue to the subsequent remarks. All in good fun.
Don't you think that at this point even Biden realizes that all he needs to do is ignore her/give her enough rope?
I dunno, Biden strikes me as a real gobshite.
About sixty percent of the time, I'd agree that Biden comes off as a real gobshite. He can be really good every once in a while.
A gobshite is like that boba stuff they put in drinks, right?
Yeah, but I think that his debate prep is a staff beating his gobshitery, particularly with respect to young attractive women, right the fuck out of him. "Ignoreherignoreherignoreher. Don't tell her she's pretty."
I agree w/434. The Biden/Palin debate is likely nothing but downside. Biden's a tool (rhetorically -- I don't mind most of his politics) and the bar couldn't be lower for Palin. Unless she's as bad as that Katie Couric interview, but I'd say that's no more than a 15% chance of that.
On the other hand, this debate was clearly a draw at best, which equals a victory for team O. Playing for a smackdown can falter, badly (remember sighing?) and all we need to do is to have the debates not matter much. I'd love a landslide but it's unlikely, so all I want is a win.
Don't you think that at this point even Biden realizes that all he needs to do is ignore her/give her enough rope?
I hope to god he does. The worst approach* would be to attack her mercilessly. "Oh the mean older man attacked the pretty mother of five who's just a regular gal, who's just learning how to navigate that mean ol' nasty political world!"
* Yeah, I think I'll go with that being the worst approach; there's something to be said for pointed, impatient, dismissive eye-rolling in response to her incoherence, but it's likely better to let the public draw its own conclusions. Then you avoid damaging your own brand in virtue of a charge of elitism.
Gobshite is the white stuff in bird poop.
Couple things: at the outset I was annoyed by Lehrer's "I want to make you talk to each other" thing, but within 30 minutes, I liked that they could talk to - and interrupt to correct - each other. Prior debates had this bullshit dynamic where Bush would say, "Kerry voted to give bin Laden the Congressional Medal of Honor," and when Kerry tried to object, the moderator would scold him. And at the end, when McCain wouldn't let Obama correct him on some point (I've already forgotten which), Obama brilliantly let it go - he might as well have brushed his shoulder on it. It was a nice minimoment.
Ezra is focused on McCain's "contempt" for Obama. I know that this is supposed to be the case, but I didn't actually see it in the debate. What says the Mineshaft?
I'm going to be really fucking pissed if all of the focus groups and instant polling shows Obama winning (so far it does), but all the pundits spend the next week calling it a draw or a McCain win. I know it's predictable, but it makes me want to kill them. Correct facts, or explain obscure exchanges (I bet 2/3 of viewers didn't actually get Obama's Spain reference). Don't waste our time telling us who we think won.
Fuckers.
Also, how many people watched this thing? It was on at 6 pacific/9 eastern. Dinner time for us and boozing time for the east coast. Isn't this the time slot they ran "Dr. Quinn, Medecine Woman" because they knew no one but old people and losers was at home watching TV on a Friday?
Yeah, but I think that his debate prep is a staff beating his gobshitery, particularly with respect to young attractive women, right the fuck out of him. "Ignoreherignoreherignoreher. Don't tell her she's pretty."
I absolutely hope this is true, but I also think the media will be primed to jump on the slightest hint of patronising or big-meanie behavior, and that the depths of Senatorial vanity born of near-total insulation from basic common sense have yet to be plumbed.
Unless she's as bad as that Katie Couric interview, but I'd say that's no more than a 15% chance of that.
Would you have guessed that her Couric interview would be vastly worse than her Gibson interview?
Seriously, she's like the ballplayer who looks overmatched the first time he sees big league pitching, then comes back and looks utterly blown away. I see no reason to believe that she can do better in terms of facts. Her only hope is a solicitous moderator plus an assholish Biden. I agree that both of these are possibilities, but I don't think that the combination of the two is an 85% chance.
The only way she wins is if the expectations are set at FAIL.
The only way she wins is if the expectations are set at FAIL.
And how likely is that, right?
The only way she wins is if the expectations are set at FAIL.
You say this after spending most of the comment describing how the expectations are set at FAIL?
Incidentally, all this "McCain is suspending his campaign" BS happened entirely because of Palin's disastrous performance with Couric and the campaign's desperate need to have something, anything, consume the upcoming news cycle in its place. I mean, McCain himself even went off and did an impromptu interview with Couric. It worked, too, as the media bought the line almost 100 percent.
McCain's contempt for Obama was visible- through a really bad staticky screen--even to my honey and I. It really bothered my honey. Also McCain made some really strange faces. There was that one weird squinting moment while Obama was speaking, and then he gave a creeptacular smile when talking about his "mavericky new partner Sarah Palin." Ew, just thinking about that moment, ew. We both leapt out of our chairs (okay, off the carpet; we don't have chairs) to squirm around after that one.
the depths of Senatorial vanity born of near-total insulation from basic common sense have yet to be plumbed.
True. I'm also worried about little reflexive things. I am terrified that he will wink at her!
The bar may be low for Palin, but man alive, every time I hear her speak it's worse. I expect her to be terrible, and there she is being even more terrible.
450: you don't have chairs? Is it because you have a TV? Was it one or the other?
I don't really get New York.
I dunno. In the VP debate, I'm pretty sure she won't "win." But the only way our side can "win" is if she comes across as a complete and utter idiot and Biden crushes her -- if it's anywhere close to a draw, she "wins," in a way (not that it will make a huge difference).
That's unlike the McCain/Obama debates, where McCain needs a clear win to benefit from the debates, and we only need a draw.
Don't you think that at this point even Biden realizes that all he needs to do is ignore her/give her enough rope?
Yeah, let's just sit back and roll our eyes like we did at Reagan and Bush Jr.
Fellow Democrats, for the love of christ, please figure out that attacking people works.
We don't have any comfortable chairs. And Christ, we've been vaguely talking about how we really need to get a couch for about a year now.
Mary Catherine, you're no heebie.
Never claimed to be, Sifu. Heebie knows no equal. But geez, your offensively defensive posture is a bit much, given that I'm pretty sure you know damn well I'm not even voting in your damn election.
The real action's at Ohio and Pennsylvania, of course. The lunch-buckets and the 'ethnic Catholics.' I think I might even be able to give you a few clues on reaching those voters (yes, even as an outsider, but my own background is somewhat similar), but I doubt very much you'd listen to me, and I'm not even convinced you want to reach them.
Most normal healthy guys are attracted to McCain's mavericky little partner. Fact. That's what your honey was thinking about when he lept up.
Every time a classicist disses Palin, McCain gets a few thousand more votes. It's a damn good thing that classicists are rare and endangered.
I remember the day when you could bag a dozen classicists right in front of your own home. They were like passenger pigeons -- when they flew south they darkened the sun. But that was then.
454: You think Biden ripping her to shreds -- which precisely everyone in the world knows he could easily do -- would be persuasive to undecided/uncommitted voters? And, good gravy, he should under no circumstances roll his eyes.
I just think you're wrong on your analysis, MC.
You can vote her if you want. I mean, as far as I'm concerned.
Give somebody else's name. Jackmormon probably wouldn't mind if you gave hers; she doesn't have chairs!
Also, giving me clues on how to reach undecided voters is unlikely to help anything until I decide to run for Bacon King.
MC, I'm from Pennsylvania, I grew up in a neighborhood that was 95% Catholic, and if you have any special insight into how people there think, I'm not seeing it.
I may not have chairs, but I vote!
"Not having chairs" is the swipple's new "not having a TV". Please update your stereotype registry,
464: I watch TV while impaled on a dough hook.
You know who could tear Palin limb from limb? Cicero.
We have a couple of chairs. All uncomfortable.
I watch TV while impaled on a dough hook.
I was so keyed up going into the debate that I made bread during it. Cinnamon-raisin delicious.
You think Biden ripping her to shreds -- which precisely everyone in the world knows he could easily do -- would be persuasive to undecided/uncommitted voters?
I'm just saying that "you'll lose votes by being too aggressive" is right there with "at this company, we don't promote assholes". I hear it a lot, but real world examples are lacking.
Fellow Democrats, for the love of christ, please figure out that attacking people works.
At least use your pain-compliance tools. Enhanced debating techniques.
465: Makes it difficult to leap to your feet in indignation, but hey.
Biden can just play his own game, and answer the questions with complete and thoughtful sentences. (But not too thoughtful!) And attack John McCain.
This was O's weakest ground, and he held it. M looked increasingly angry, which reinforces the instability narrative. But no so much of an imbalance that the press will feel obligated (as they did with their boy Bush) to overrule general public opinion.
Steph pronounced it a win for O on Nightline.
We're better off with the thing staying close until the last week or ten days. But with McCain behind trying one cockamamie game changer after another.
470: Biden definitely shouldn't cause organ failure, though. Out of bounds.
I think that Biden should rip Palin apart just for fun. If he doesn't he'll regret it to the end of his life. if Obama wins decisively, he could say "I didn't need to be so reserved". If Obama loses he'd think about the big sacrifice he made, for nothing.
and if you have any special insight into how people there think, I'm not seeing it
Shorter version: they don't trust Ivy League intellectuals, but they do like an Ivy-League-certified scrappy fighter who is on their side and who will go to the mat for them. Fine line between being an outsider egghead and being an egghead who is on our side, obviously. But this shit really matters, is what I think.
475 -- In my experience, the best way to reach working class catholic voters is to ply them with a shitload of booze.
The real action's at Ohio and Pennsylvania, of course.
Um, Obama has Pennsylvania in the bag and if he wins either Colorado or Virginia (which looks very likely), he won't even need Ohio.
Post-Debate Quiz: How many hours have I gone without eating anything other than bacon?
Post-Debate prediction: How long can I keep it up?
478: for god's sake, man, don't give up.
Biden can just play his own game, and answer the questions with complete and thoughtful sentences.
He might also want to make a few remarks about the virtues of putting together an executive team. Hint, hint.
I know everybody knows this, but I'll say it anyway: the winner of the debate is going to be determined by the media spin. So far, the insta-polls seem to favor Obama, and that 's a good sign, but more important, the media response I've seen seems open-minded - they haven't invented some key Obama gaffe.
I think it's possible that the Republicans are so thoroughly discredited that even the media can't stick up for them any more.
Also, I think 472 is right. I wish McCain had sucked more, but so far I don't see any damage having been done to Obama.
Um, Obama has Pennsylvania in the bag and if he wins either Colorado or Virginia (which looks very likely), he won't even need Ohio.
Oh well, then. Um, if you're feeling that confident with the polls, well fair play to you (yeah, the Dems got PA in the bag, sure, no worries). And please forget I even mentioned a couple of insignificant swing states, and remember remember the fifth of November, and we'll touch base and compare notes the day after the election, eh?
At least use your pain-compliance tools. Enhanced debating techniques.
Debaters who don't answer the question get tased!
yeah, the Dems got PA in the bag, sure, no worries
Agreed!
That's sort of a banal point, though, since Obama's been consistently ahead there.
I suppose the larger point -- that the electoral map looks great for Obama, and has done so consistently -- is also sort of banal, but it's key to the issue, so here we are.
On the other hand, Tim Russert's dad was in WWII, and now he's dead and Obama went to Harvard and didn't bite McCain's neck goiter off just for the fuck of it.
Food for thought!
481: McCain's whole "war on the press" schtick is, I think, a huge mistake. They may be cowards, and in the tank, but they're thin-skinned.
Remember, to get PA, you have to get the synecdochic Mary Catherine.
Fellow Democrats, for the love of christ, please figure out that attacking people works.
Amen brother.
JRoth: I mean, yeah, this was McCain's best chance to make progress, but this was also Obama's best chance to bury him.
It wasn't Obama's best chance to bury him, not at all. Other than withdrawing from Iraq, the consensus position favors McCain, so if you try and bury him, you wind up highlighting the disagreements.
We're back to status quo ante, of Obama marginally ahead.
A bit more than marginally, particularly since McCain doesn't have any reserves. That's where the battle turns - getting the other guy to waste his reserves. Done. (The batle is won in the pursuit, of course.)
This worries me for 2 reasons: Easier for something to go wrong and cost us the election, and even if Obama wins, he'll have no mandate.
Mandates are determined by swing voters, and they don't swing until the last ten days.
Mandates are overrated, but they're not nothing. If Obama wins with 49.9% of the vote, how many Bush Dogs will happily vote and run against him to keep their red districts happy?
Did anybody bother to check the conservative blogs? McCain really didn't win. (It's quite odd, actually; both sides seem to think their guy lost, weirdly enough, which is a win for Obama.)
For the R's to keep Obama to 49.9 they need a third party or they need their guys to turn out, and their guys are totally deflated.
max
['The smell of defeat is wafting from their ranks, especially since the culture war shit is off the table.']
Remember how Bush just declared himself to have a mandate?
Pennsylvania is second only to New Hampshire in Blue states that I am wary could swing for McCain. I have no expectation of Ohio.
MC -- I've worked in politics in western PA (not in this cycle), and would be stunned -- floored -- if Obama lost this election in PA after both Kerry and Gore held it. The racism factor is more than balanced by the turnout factor/shift in political alignment of the formerly republican middle and professional class sectors. I see the polls that give you mild concern, but absent a major surprise I just don't see McCain with a remote chance.
I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is -- $250 to a charity of your choice (including the catholic church itself) if McCain wins PA. I'll give you odds -- you donate $150 to a worthy charity here in south-central Los Angeles if Obama loses PA. Let me know if you're game.
It's also interesting that the only places where the Wall Street crisis seems to have helped the Republicans are in NH and PA. My own pet theory, unsupported by evidence, is that the recollection of Wall Street republicanism is stronger in the Northeast than elsewhere, so some folks look to the Republicans to solve a financial crisis. Still no way that McCain wins PA.
488: both sides seem to think their guy lost,
Yeah, the watchers at our house were all fairly deflated. (I think mostly because of the soft bigotry of expectations of derangement.) However, trying to think about the debate through the eyes of "undecideds" I know, who still have worries about Rev. Wright, Muslim and other crazy stuff—or at a minimum view him as an empty shell "celebrity" piece of fluff*—Obama's demeanor and ability to hold his own was probably something of a surprise. ( I just wonder how many of them actually watched the thing.)
*And at the bottom a lot of this tinged with a dollop of unacknowledged racism.
I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is -- $250 to a charity of your choice (including the catholic church itself) if McCain wins PA. I'll give you odds -- you donate $150 to a worthy charity here in south-central Los Angeles if Obama loses PA. Let me know if you're game.
Yeah, I'm game, and I hope you win. Let's say you give 150 to Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens if McCain wins, or else I give 150 to some LA-based charity (but not NARAL or anything "reproductive-rights" related, because I really am Catholic on that point, and won't give money to fund that stuff) if Obama wins. Deal?
Pennsylvania is second only to New Hampshire in Blue states that I am wary could swing for McCain
If NH swings it the bad way, my guilt and rage will know no bounds. Pretty backwoods? Won't be pretty no more. I'm gradually turning into mcmanus here.
Maybe this thread is over, but...
I thought Obama pretty clearly won the domestic policy stuff and McCain won the foreign policy stuff, which means Obama won the debate going away, since domestic policy is more important.
But I am so disappointed in how conventional Obama is, especially on foreign policy. Almost everything he said there reeked of this Democratic establishment national security triangulation. Demonize Iran! Georgia and Ukraine in NATO! (An insanely risky and provocative policy). Talk big about forcing Pakistan to take control of the tribal areas or sending our troops in to do it for them! (An even more insanely risky policy, and a case where he achieved the unlikely feat of looking crazier than McCain). Double down on Afghanistan! (why, exactly?) The problem with Iraq is that it doesn't leave us free enough to fight wars elsewhere! The only lesson of Iraq is that we should "use our troops wisely!".
He was also pretty conventional on domestic policy, but I think he understands the issues there and can switch up somewhat in office. On foreign policy, I think he really believes this national security establishment bullshit.
I think he really believes this national security establishment bullshit.
Oh, who knows what he really believes? Just get him across the finish line, I guess.
Deal! And you didn't even take the odds! Here's my charity of choice, a great organization doing great work around here:
http://www.cbgcla.org/index.html
Hope that's acceptable (not at all abortion related; I'm personally semi-kinda pro-life myself, although I'm in favor of legalized abortion). Let me know if it's acceptable, if not I'll pick something else.
The capacity for anxiety among Democrats really is something to behold. McCain just had one of the worst weeks that I can imagine: his veep selection self-immolated, again, on national tv; the markets that he helped deregulate burst into flame on national tv; the deal that he promised to forge to save said markets burst into flames after he showed up; and he self-immolated, claiming he wouldn't debate and then debating, on national tv.
As for the debate itself, Obama held his own, certainly outwonking McCain at at a time that wonks are popular folks, and even trading punches in a few exchanges. More than that, Obama looked presidential, sounded knowledgeable, and repeatedly called McCain a liar, which is fast becoming the narrative of the campaign. It was a good night, people, by almost any rational measure.
Finally, the polls are looking good, the ground game is the best in any of our memories, maybe the best ever, Obama keeps raising more money with each passing month, and he hasn't made a mistake in a very long time. It's okay to think it's okay.
So, ari, you never, in your life, release anxiety by indulging in pessimism?
498 gets it right. Canadians: you just can't ever tell.
499: good lord, Walt, masturbate. You'll live longer!
501: I'm not sure I want to, now that I know that McCain is our next President.
497: Yeah, that looks great. I'm personally "pro-life" (by which I mean anti-abortion), but politically I'm "pro-choice," if only passively and reluctantly, because I don't want to impose my almost certainly theologically-based beliefs on others in a pluralistic non-theocratic representative democracy. Don't sit right with me, though, and I won't give money to support it.
No more masturbating; too, John McCain?
498 -- Riffing off one point from Ari , as someone who worked professionally doing field work for campaigns in the 90s, I think it's pretty hard to overestimate how much better the Obama campaign is at this than any Democrat has been in decades (since at least the 80s and the decline of the old regional machines). I meant to leave a comment to this effect on one of Beck's old posts but got too busy. In terms of the size and organization of the effort, the numbers of volunteers, and the tightness of the strategy, it's just unprecedented.
Kerry was actually pretty good at this, but his campaign is blown away in comparison to Obama's. And when you look at the Dem field organization in '88, '92, '96, and '00 there's simply no comparison at all. If field is good for 2 points that don't creep into poll numbers in key states, and I think it is, I think we can all feel very good right now. The internet, MoveOn, and the pissed off at GWB factor has really helped a lot.
So, ari, you never, in your life, release anxiety by indulging in pessimism?
Oh no, a Canadian would never indulge in pessimism. And especially not a nice Canadian boy from Montréal.
Oh, who knows what he really believes? Just get him across the finish line, I guess
Who knows indeed. But he's digging himself deeply into an aggressively militarist stance, which means that A) he's truly sympathetic with it, or B) he too apathetic / scared to do anything about it, which is in some ways just as bad.
I came away from this debate thinking Obama will win the presidency. I also came away from it thinking that especially on foreign policy, it will be a long hard fight to get a progressive stance out of an Obama presidency. A long hard fight is a big step up over an impossible dream, which is what it is under Bush or would be under McCain. But still. I see us heading down a really dangerous course, and I wish I could have more faith he's the guy to take us away from it.
Honestly, I was disappointed at the timidity and conventionality I saw at this time, where we have so many issues that demand real boldness. I guess I've displaced my Democratic pessimism onto the post-election period.
499: I do. And I did through Super Tuesday of the primary. And I don't think things are in the bag this time. At least not yet (I have all manner of theories about how McCain might win). But I do think ALL of the indicators favor Obama right now. And pretending otherwise is doom-and-gloomism of a variety that I find unseemly. It really was a good night capping off a good week for Obama. That the good week might come at the expense of the international economy gives me pause. But that's a worry for another day.
503 -- Awesome. Now I know that if McCain wins, at least I know that my estate will give some cash to charity after I kill myself.
Also, I'm sure that I'll have some chance on some thread soon to set forth my incredibly complex, thoughtful, and nuanced position on abortion , an argument no one else has made with such thoughtfulness and care, but I'm too drunk right now to dodge the bullets.
my incredibly complex, thoughtful, and nuanced position on abortion
Mandatory. For all.
I'm pretty optimistic, though I thought McCain won the debate pretty handily. It's because I believe in a place called Structural Models of US Presidental Elections.
Mandatory. For all.
Ari! Have a doughnut. Maple-glazed, even.
Ari is the only one of us with a plan for slowing down the release of greenhouse gases.
I saw an undecided voter poll immediately after showing a huge victory for Obama. It reminded me that a lot of undecided voters simply haven't seen Obama very much, and don't have a sense for how cool, calm, and Presidential he is. I think Obama generally will pick up a few points with more exposure. He's been stereotyped as an inexperienced shallow far left celebrity, when he's actually a reserved and rather conventional Ivy type who comes off as composed, intelligent, trustworthy, and generally somebody who clears the Presidential credibility bar with ease.
The public *wants* to vote Democratic. It's still the New Deal brand, and this is a New Deal time. This is probably going to be the first decade where real family income is lower at the end of the decade then it was at the start. We're in a long, slow-motion recession. McCain has no answer when Obama hits the Democrats are for you, Republicans are for the rich theme. It's like body shots in a boxing match, and Obama is plenty smart enough to work the body. I think the race is his to lose.
My kingdom (such as it is) for a doughnut. We don't even have any cookies around the house. And we're out of milk! Dry cereal? No, I can't do it.
What is this "ugh" doing in the "donut", you effete fops?
511: Yes. Well, I believe in the fundamentals as much as I believe in anything. Other than mandatory abortions, of course. As CN says: Abortion for all! It's the green thing to do!
Have you had a Canadian doughnut, CN? By the way, I'm re-watching the debate (sick, I know), and I just noticed the McCain threatened to shoot George Schultz. He really is a maverick.
McCain has a loathing of all people named "Schultz". It dates back to this time when he was a POW...
Halperin gives Obama an A- and McCain a B-. That sound you hear is the conventional wisdom hardening. And no, I won't link to Halperin, that piece of shit.
The Halford platform: I believe in mandatory abortions for Republicans, but am opposed to spaying or neutering animals. Basically, I want a socialist world in which thousands of stray cats and dogs roam free in front of state owned day care centers. And, Tim Horton's is banned. My friends.
outwonking McCain at at a time that wonks are popular folks,
Um. We love you, Ari, but we're not a good sample of the general population.
505: In my paranoid mode I've believed for years that the DLC centrist types deliberately let the ground game weaken, because if you rely on volunteers and rank and file you have to be somewhat responsive to their concerns, and the wonks, operatives, and big donors might lose control of the party. That's the way it seemed in Portland, OR when I tried to volunteer before 2000.
It also seemed that most of the big Democratic strategists had their bets hedged well enough that they didn't really suffer much when the Democrats lost. The Democrats weren't necessarily even their main client.
And that the primary ideological commitment of many Democratic leaders was opposition to the left wing of the Democratic Party.
I'm not sure that the third of these has changed.
You know how you can figure that sort of thing out, right?
The option chosen appears to have been successful.
This thread is really reassuring. I don't watch these people on TV much (I watch TV, that's just not where I get political news), and I thought McCain presented much better than I was expecting, and Obama worse. But I don't trust my perceptions on this stuff to match up with anyone else's, and it looks as if, thank heavens, they don't.
I was disappointed that Obama didn't slap McCain down on the earmarks silliness. 3% of the budget. McCain is still promising to balance the budget on waste and inefficiency.
It wasn't Obama's best chance to bury him, not at all. Other than withdrawing from Iraq, the consensus position favors McCain, so if you try and bury him, you wind up highlighting the disagreements.
I didn't mean the substance of the debate, I meant the circumstances around it - unless I missed it, Obama didn't even make an oblique reference to McCain's stunt this week. People didn't buy it, and I think that Obama could have really smacked McCain down over it, to great effect.
You say this after spending most of the comment describing how the expectations are set at FAIL?
Well, my expectations are set at FAIL, but I doubt that the press will actually head into next Thursday talking about how Palin is likely to descend into actual frontier gibberish, so that anything better will be a win. They will say things like, "She hasn't looked good in interviews up til now, and she has to show that she can hold her own against an experienced Biden." Now, what that will actually mean is "Speak in complete, coherent sentences and not say anything so stupid that even stupid voters know it's wrong," which is a low bar. But it's still a bar I don't think she can clear. After the Couric interview, I will be stunned if she doesn't give at least one utterly, transparently incoherent response plus one nonsensical response that bears a tangential (if not orthogonal) relationship to a talking point she doesn't actually understand.
One thing about last night's debate is seeing just how long and, potentially, substantial these things are. When Bush was in there, it was all about how he was going to sneak through the 90 minutes - he used relentless talking points and his juvenile persona to prevent any sense of seriousness. McCain, to his credit, is a more serious human being than that, and Obama maintained such an even keel that the net effect was pretty grown up. Palin has neither the knowledge nor the savvy to pull off what Bush did.
Further on Palin: John was saying some insightful things over at LGM (traitor) about how Palin's political success has been entirely at a personal, retail level where not only do you not need the wonky stuff, but also the voters explicitly believe they're voting for a person, not a politician/policy-maker. There's a lot of that in national politics as well, of course, but you need to be conversant with the wonky stuff, if only to appear serious to people who don't, in fact, know you.
Because of his background, Bush in 2000 was much more conversant with rightwing talking points than Palin is now - that's why she's floundering so much. She's been working with the grade school version of wingnuttery, and all the sudden she's in a grad seminar, and she can't spew forth the crap the way even a nutjob like Inhofe can, let alone a McConnell or Boehner.
Oh, one other note on the debate: I was annoyed (in real time) that they only had one question on Iraq. That had the effect that all other references to Iraq were at a talking point level where McCain could just repeat "surge surge surge" and it was difficult for Obama to take him off his game. I thought the "John likes to act as if the war started in 2007" was superb (obviously a setpiece, but it fit neatly in place), but there wasn't really an opportunity to echo it, which was a shame.
526: He did address that point, but I think anything beyond what he said would have come across as too wonky. This is one of those areas where (unfortunately) you need both journalists to provide the context and a basic level of "numeracy" within the electorate.
I also think it is one of the areas where you could see Obama getting pissed off* (but controlled it well in the moment). And that is good, I think nether Gore nor Kerry really seemed to hate Bush the way they clearly should have it.
*The one that seemed to really irk Obama was the subcommittee stuff. Rightfully so. That kind of out-of-context abuse of inside baseball stuff is highly destructive to the ability of an organization to function in the future (in this case the Senate). In a fair world, the whole Congress would have descended like a pack of wolves on McCain when he showed up this week, torn him limb from limb and displayed his bones at the entrance to the chambers in perpetuity as a warning.**
** Of course by this standard, Newt Gingrich and John Boehner would have been dead long ago.
I had thought what had been holding Obama back in the polls against McCain was that he was too much of an unknown quantity for the undecided voter, and once people got a chance to see him on the national stage as the nominee that he would build up a substantial lead that would last until the election.
I expected that to happen after the convention, since the big public speech is Obama's strength. My current hope is that the Palin pick arrested this natural dynamic. Maybe the debate will put that back on track.
I just think that "3%" is basic enough for almost anyone to understand.
I like Stormcrow's parliamentary approach....
Because of his background, Bush in 2000 was much more conversant with rightwing talking points than Palin is now - that's why she's floundering so much. She's been working with the grade school version of wingnuttery, and all the sudden she's in a grad seminar, and she can't spew forth the crap the way even a nutjob like Inhofe can, let alone a McConnell or Boehner.
I think a great deal of it is also that she's genuinely an outsider to Washington, so the press doesn't know her and is therefore unwilling to explain away her incoherence. I mean, the Pence/Republican Study Group "cut capital gains and provide mortgage insurance" bailout plan really isn't that much more sensical than "I can see Russia from my house", but Pence is a respected player so the plan is treated respectfully. Once a Republican is in the club, there's almost no nonsense they can utter that gets called out as nonsense.
536 is definitely correct, but I think that you have to get pretty far down into the dregs of the House Republicans before you get someone as literally incoherent as Palin was with Couric (it wasn't that her answers were logically unsound; they didn't describe anything in the English language. Word salad, I read somewhere).
The Gibson interview was bad, but within IOKIYAR bounds. The Couric interview would have embarrassed Admiral Stockdale.
This is the kind of thing Yglesias does best, deftly gutting a spokesperson or talking point in a more or less irrefutable way. As a policy analyst he's OK, but there are better.
Early on DeLong compared Yglesias to Kinsley, but paradoxically, Kinsley's contrarian Democrat opportunism pretty much destroyed him. He wrote a lot of good stuff, but he'll be remembered for the shitty stuff.
And that the primary ideological commitment of many Democratic leaders was opposition to the left wing of the Democratic Party.
I've switched from worrying about Obama losing the election to worrying that this is true of him. In the debate last night, he signaled his acceptance of the ideological underpinnings of three potential new conflicts (Russia, Iran, Pakistan), plus tied himself completely to expanding the Afghanistan war.
I was disappointed that Obama didn't slap McCain down on the earmarks silliness. 3% of the budget.
I'm disappointed to find you retailing this trollish right-wing propaganda, Emerson. Earmarks are about six-tenths of one percent of the budget. You're overestimating them by a factor of five.
538: I agree. Yglesias' strength is as a propagandist rather than as an analyst.
PGD's using fuzzy math on us, folks. Pay him no heed. He's an economist, you know.
ToS endorses Palin, that's interesting, i thought he's completely insensitive being
I thought McCain presented much better than I was expecting, and Obama worse.
This was my reaction, also. People kept saying McCain is much better in smaller-scale environments, and I now think this is true.
But none of this matters. The conventional wisdom is something the media will create, and I haven't seen a media this hostile to a Republican since George HW Bush.
Huh. McC clearly says "Horseshit! Horseshit!" when O mentions McC's apparent refusal to meet with NATO ally Spain.
Go here and forward to 4:30. (There's a dumb ad.)
I saw that. He's a very cranky man, isn't he?
A lot of McCain's effectiveness depends on people not knowing what he's saying, e.g. the "earmarks" silliness. And he hammered the same old Raise Your Taxes soundbite.
A lot of McCain's effectiveness depends on people not knowing what he's saying
Very true. Last night I thought he misspoke when he said fiscal crisis and was willing to let it go. But today I realize he meant fiscal, because if there was a fiscal crisis, a spending freeze might actually make some sense. In a financial crisis, a spending freeze is the last thing you want to do.
547: At the time, I thought, "Surely he is saying 'of course not!'" But of course not.
I've switched from worrying about Obama losing the election to worrying that this is true of him. .
JFC, can you save it for January?
I don't know whether there ever was a golden age when candidates ran on their programs and voters decided between them that way. It has been theorized that with TV, campaigning became increasingly dissociated from governing -- voters voted for an image and a feeling, and policymakers did their work like any other technician while the figurehead mouths the right slogans.
Anyway, my theory is that that separation has broken down, and that major decisions are made on the basis of electoral slogans which are not based on policy considerations, but on political demographics and test marketing. It doesn't seem that McCain really has any ideas behind his soundbites, or any hidden depths; to him the soundbites are truths. (Much less Palin.)
All the way back to Mondale at least the Democrats have tried to run on their program, or at least to keep their campaign and their governance separate, and they've been consistently punished for this.
Ygelsias's Pence article shows that the Republicans in the House (the majority during much of the last 14 years) have no understanding at all of their own policies or the reasons for them. The slogans are all there is. (That is to say, they aren't Chicago School economists, bad as that would be. They're no more economists than I am. They're sloganeers.)
That kind of electoral politics is still state of the art. The Reagan-Atwater-Rove-Bush slogan machine was unstoppable, and won right up until the moment when consequences of their slogan policies became life-threatening.
Whoops -- 553 me, whoever I am these days.
Carp, you always need a backup worry in case your primary worry fails you. It's risky to rely on a single parachute.
When the ToS is coherent, he lies stupidly. But 557 is an improvement.
I've only read half the comments but I have to say I and everyone else I watched the debate with was disappointed with Obama.
He's so unbelievably bad at making his points tangible or concrete. He's so bad at using anecdotes. He's so bad at, as someone else said, inviting the audience to share outrage or frustration or any emotion really.
He's endearing, but he's very abstract. I don't think the debate was terrible for him, but he's not winning the election in the debates.
559: The polls say otherwise.
I just looked at fivethirtyeight and saw that. It's definitely reassuring.
I still think Obama had lots of good answers, but I'm not sure he had any memorable answers.
But I always tend to be more critical of people I agree with.
I won't know who I think won until I read the reviews,
but judged by my wonky esthetics, Barry's deadpan aphorisms
trump McC's jittery platitudes.
Why hasn't McC closed the deal on monetary rescue yet ?
He promised to do that before debating.
||
Wow. No more masturbating to Paul Newman.
|>
We need to a comparison and contrast of the deportments of Barack Obama & Paul Newman to show what Obama is missing or has to hide.
Barry's probably wearing contacts.
Obama & Newman at the same ages, of course.
I do think they have a lot in common, besides physical appearance. I can imagine Obama having a smart sneer & snarl we have never seen. Too bad for him, for us, and maybe for the country.
Obama has yet to be nominated for an Oscar(tm).
This is wrong, wrong, wrong, but McCain in some ways sounds as much like a disapproving old lady than a grumpy old man.
Obama hasn't even got a Grammy Award. Don't Bill Clinton and Al Gore both have those?
the polls say otherwise
i watched only about 10 min of the debate
just thought that Obama could use to not show his displeasure at McCain's remarks like 'Sen. Obama does not know, does not understand, does not get' etc which sounded very displeasing, he looked kinda easily injured
and he stutter a bit and check his notes often, which could make him look weaker, but stuttering is like winning time to complete the thought, not something one just repeated many times before and says mechanically so maybe it's just his natural habit
maybe looking a bit vulnerable wouldn't hurt him to win more voters though, something like 'Palin paradox'
The end times are here. Brad de Long describes Stirling Newberry as saying something smart.
575:My heart....UHHHhhh...
Just kidding.
Toldyatoldyayoldyatoldyatoldyatoldyatoldyatoldya
No, what this means is that Sarah Palin was the proverbial straw, and Brad has moved from shrill to strange to, as Jim Morrison said, beautiful.
Brad doesn't provide a link, but here is SN's latest, in which Newberry says some very nice things about BDL. Hmmm.
I don't think that quote is in that piece. Maybe at firedoglake.
Hey, I'm watching the debate finally. The first thing that strikes me: Jim Lehrer is making a classic mistake in running a discussion: interrupting the discussion to tell people they need to talk to each other. If you want them to talk, you need to shut up.
Barry O won me on the first question, about the financial crisis. He had four well defined bullet points that basically corresponded to the Dodd plan, McC only had generalities.
After that, they went back to seeing who could reaffirm things that everyone agrees on the most.
McCain will kill ethanol subsidies? He just got a point.
They shouldn't be competing to see who is the biggest budget hawk. Great Depression like situations aren't the right time to be afraid of deficit spending.
McCain's stripy tie doesn't look good on internet TV.
In general, you can only tell the difference between the candidates if you pay attention to the code words. For a voter who isn't paying close attention, this is a draw.
Barry O is winning the foreign policy debate, too. "McCain acts as if the war began in 2007" is a great line.
McCain's "A strategy of clearing and holding and then the people become allied with you" is a crappy line.
When I heard the excerpts on the radio while getting the kids ready for school, it sounded like Barack said "I understand the difference between strategy and tactics, and the decision to go into Iraq in the first place was a strategic blunder." His actual statement is less punchy.
Good, he called McCain on the "bomb Iran" song. Also, his tie looks very nice.
oh god, the comparative bracelet thing is bullshit.
I have a cock ring that was given to me by the mother of a young soldier. Right before he died, he mailed his cock ring back to his mom, and said "Don't let another young, sexually adventurous man die like me." His mom gave that cock ring to me, and I wear it on my penis now, and pledge to wear it for the next four years.
I love this belated live-commenting, Rob. And yeah, I thought the bracelet thing was dumb. OTOH, O did a good job, I felt, of making the point that the bracelet does not mean that all parents of dead soldiers have identical political positions.
rob was tape-delayed to ensure FCC compliance.
I may have to drop the time delayed live blogging if my kids get fussy in the middle of the night.
I would have dinner with Raul Castro, Ahmadinejad, and Chavez. It sounds like one of those "dinner with any three historical figures" things. My three are normally David Hume, Zhuangzi, and Socrates, but whatever.
Ahmadinejad unfortunately can't eat pork. Otherwise I would supply you with a nice ham for the dinner.
Oh thank god Barry O is pointing out that Ahmadinejad is not the whole of the Iranian government.
You know, a Quaker mission met with Hitler.
I don't eat pork either. I've long considered getting a pet pig, just because they are such beautiful animals.
Oh thank god Barry O is pointing out that Ahmadinejad is not the whole of the Iranian government.
Seriously. Unfortunately, (a) O is one of the only people in the US government who seems to know this, and (b) knowing too much about how foreign governments work is suspicious.
That said, it still turns me on when he pronounces "Taliban" and "Pakistan" correctly, and I wonder if there's something strategic in the fact that he Americanizes "Afghanistan," where he thinks we should be doing more offense.
That said, it still turns me on when he pronounces "Taliban" and "Pakistan" correctly
Really? It kind of annoys me; they have standard Americanized pronunciations, which one should use when speaking English. Just imagine if one tried to consistently say "France" as the French do. Or insisted on calling Germany "Deutschland".
Getting the names of people right as much as possible seems like a good thing to do, but countries? Just seems pretentious.
"And we will deal with the government of Zhong guo..."
597: Frankly, that would turn me on, too.
593: Pacifists are Nazis, as Michael Kelly showed.
"We sit down with Ahmadinejad and he says 'we're going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth' and we say, 'no you won't'"
No, we say "by wipe off the face of the earth, do you mean eliminating a state that is constitutionally a Jewish state and replacing it with a genuinely secular sate, or do you mean killing all the Jews?"
598: Ah, but what if he gets the tones wrong?
Do the Czechs count as a "fledgling democracy"? On the basis of their avant guard art, I'd say they were more advanced than we are.
And Greece is "Hella", according to the demented local population.
But screw 'em. Eventually Hellas will invade Macedonia to prevent the Slavic Macedonians from calling themselves by a Greek Hellene name when they're not Hellenes.
McCain just got another point for "I looked into Putin's eyes and I saw a K and a G and a B."
Frankly, I think that the question of whether to have another Holocaust should be discussed rationally rather emotionally. I really appreciate McCain's bringing the question up, though.
605: Yeah, wasn't that just incredible? I can't believe people aren't saying he lost the debate just based on that line alone.
The finale: both candidates are trying to squeeze their best points into the lest few minutes, which they know is a rhetorically powerful point. This actually makes everything incoherent.
I like hearing about Barack's Kenyan father at this time. It makes me want to have sex with him. At the same time, McCain goes for his POW story. I respect that too (doesn't everyone here?) A McCain biographer on the Terri Gross show said that the VC broke McCain at one point, and he admitted to whatever crap they wanted him to. After that he intentionally goaded the guards into beating him more, as a strange form of penance.
I'm scoring the debate Obama 2,000 and McCain 2. From here until election day I am a Obama sycophant. After that, critical thinking will be restored.
And so to bed.
Frank Rich seems really pissed off.
"We sit down with Ahmadinejad and he says 'we're going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth' and we say, 'no you won't'"
See, this illustrates Anscombe's claim that the contradiction of a declaration of intent is the declaration of a contrary intent.