yeah, Obama should have hammered him on this. “You travel all over the world, but can’t travel to your own committee meetings, John.”
It would have been The Soundbite Of The Week.
It rolled off of Obama’s, but considering the whole “secret muslim” issue, I’m not sure if this scores any points for him.
OK, so you don’t make even make the most cursory check of what you’re posting, which completely invalidates my comment about credibility.:rolleyes: And don’t call me Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 
That’s ridiculous. It makes all the difference in the world. It legitimizes people we don’t want to legitimize. Not only in the world at large, but in these other countries, as well. It would help Achmedinijad greatly in the eyes of his own country if he could sit down with the president of the U.S. as equals. We don’t want that. The more we , and other nations, can send a message to the people of Iran, that their leader is a nut and is laughed at, the better it is. We do not want the country rallying behind him.
Permit me to belabor that point. When Dana Perino makes a conciliatory gesture with an answer to a question that de-emphasizes the military option, Bush is “talking” to whats-his-face. Modern diplomacy, like the diplomacy of old, is often conducted by minor gestures and seeming irrelevancies. The “ping-pong” diplomacy with Red China is a classic example.
Look at my post with the quote from CBS and stop ignoring it, when other news outlets reported it the same, it falls on Kissinger (or the media) to explain why it was reported that way, Obama just read the news. And once again Obama has mentioned that negotiations are not only to be done by the president.
McCain perserverated on earmarks too much. In contrast, Obama seemed to be able to discuss a wide range of spending problems, and this gave him the appearance of someone who has really studied the issues. McCain lost points when Obama put earmark spending in perspective by comparing it to other excessive tax cuts. Instead of making an equally sound counterpoint, McCain just continued to whine about the same damn subject, with nothing new added to it.
McCain opened himself up to some clever digs by Obama. He should have never derided Obama on his Pakistan position when “bomb bomb bomb-Iran” is one of the most memorable gaffes in the last 3 years. And the Ms. Congeniality references were just stupid. Why would anyone be calling him “Ms.” anything, let alone Ms. Congeniality? It bordered on a non sequiter, except we all knew what he was trying to do with that. When Obama refused to pick up the bait the first time, McCain should have left that alone.
When McCain attacked Obama, he undercut himself by addressing the barbs to Lehrer and not to Obama himself. Made him look like he was tattling to the teacher and not confronting his opponent like an adult. Also, McCain has fallen prey to the same thing that hurt Hillary: he grins when Obama refutes the things he says about him. To me, and perhaps others, the smirk looks like a smug admission of lying. If you really believed someone stood for bad things that would hurt the country, does it make sense that you’d be grinning about it like a goddamn Chesire cat? Of course not. More than 75% of Obama’s apparent sincerity comes from him knowing when smiling is appropriate and when it’s not.
Of course I’m not in McCain’s target audience, but his blatant attempts to appeal to populism were vomit-inducing. I’m sorry but “Let us win” from someone who may not even be old enough to drink is not a valid reason to continue the war in Iraq. The devoted Righties probably still like this flavor of Kool-Aide, but I can’t see too many moderates being swayed by this mindset.
I don’t think people have a hard time believing that. After all, anyone can make a mistake; even a legislative body like Congress.
You must have a really boring life to 1) have focused on this originally and 2) belabor it. Two people, including the victim of my secret insult in an unknown language, have weighed in that this is much ado about squat. One of those explanations was even able to figure out what happened—that I did make a mistake and then went back and thought I fixed it. Yet, you are intent on now shifting the goal post so that I did something bad beyond typing poorly.
I take back my winking smiley and replace it with a bucket of these: :rolleyes:
The measure of McCain is not limited to the last two years.
There is no better way to assure that Iran ralliles behind the hard-line theocrats like Whats-his-face than making threatening gestures and saber-rattling. Really, you don’t get this?
That struck me as well. The young military personnel he referred to don’t have all the intel and wisdom that a President does. Their support or opposition should be duly noted, not relied upon for making decisions. I noticed that my son’s worldview was definitely skewed while he was serving in Iraq, for example.
This line of attack would be clever if not for the fact that Achmedinijad is not the main guy in Iran. As reported before, and implied in the reply by Obama, is that the president does not need to be involved directly as many others in this thread have pointed out too.
thank you for my new word 
per·sev·er·ate [per-sev-uh-reyt] –verb --to repeat something insistently or redundantly: to perseverate in reminding children of their responsibilities.
I’m not ignoring anything. If Obama wants to say that his information came from an article and that article may have been worded poorly, he is free to do so. The fact is he made a claim. One would think that before a candidate characterizes the position of someone like Kissinger that he would KNOW what that position is. I think it’s excusable for you or I to base an opinion on an article, but the bar is higher for a Presidential debate, don’t you think?
The fact is that Obama was wrong in trying to use Kissinger’s position to support what he had said in the primaries. The frustrating thing is that I don’t think Obama still holds that position (I could be wrong). If he does not, he shouldn’t try to bring up support for it when his quote from the primary is brought up. If he doesn’t, he should tell McCain. “You and I have the exact same position on this. All this hubbub to the contrary is a result of me misspeaking in the primary.”
Well, you gave points to McCain for doing something Obama presumably should have. Obama would only reasonably be expected to have gone to Afghanistan in the last 3+ years or so since he became a Senator and he has been chair of the subcommittee for European Affairs for even almost two years…the time frame in question and what McCain was holding him accountable for.
In that time Obama did more than McCain on this issue.
Nice try moving the goal post though.
EDIT: Messed up my math counting years
I didn’t say he is the main guy, so you are attacking a strawman. He is, though, the figurehead.
Huh? You don’t think he should have gone to Afghanistan. I know these guys are busy with campaigning and all, but even by his own admission, Afghanistan is of primary importance. He went to Iraq. After he was embarrassed into it, I guess.
That’ a different point. One I agree with. But we can marginalize and discount that nut without saber-rattling.
I thought the “I’ve looked into Putin’s soul and I saw three things: K - G - B” was a dudder, too.
Maybe he should have. I am saying people living in glass houses should not throw stones. McCain is the ranking member for his party of the whole Armed Services Committee. Obama is chair of a subcommittee. McCain claims expertise in the realm of our armed forces. Perhaps McCain has traveled abroad. Great! But I find it worse that he cannot make it across town to his committee meetings on the very topic he is lambasting Obama for than Obama not making it to Afghanistan.