Missles aren’t an invasion? THEY seem to think it is. It’s one of their primary beefs with us.
I missed the second half. Did McCain talk about The Surge™ and how it worked? I don’t understand why they keep bringing that up. Even if you agree that it “worked” (i.e., improved the security situation long enough to buy breathing space for political progress), then at best you’re saying “At least ]one tactic in our misbegotten, ill-planned drawn-out train wreck of an open-ended occupation following an unjustified invasion serving an insane doctrine. . . has worked.”
In what I did see, Obama seemed to be engaging with people much more successfully than McCain.
There was this guy, his name was something like Roosevelt, said “my friends” alot in “fireside chats” he liked to have with people. He raised taxes, seemed to think that it was necessary to pay for a war we were involved in at the time. Can’t imagine he ever amounted to much in American politics.
Overall, I thought Obama came off better, but I do think he still sounds a little unsteady talking foreign policy.
I have a question about McCain’s idea about the government buying up all of the bad mortgages. Let’s say I live in a house that I can afford, and my next door neighbor is in a similarly valued house, but it’s above their means. They put little money down and got a shady mortgage and now are in danger of being foreclosed upon. McCain’s saying (I think) that under his exciting new plan, the neighbor’s house would be re-valued and the mortgage adjusted accordingly, supposedly allowing them to keep their home. Right? Well, doesn’t that negatively affect the value of my house?? I don’t disagree that something should be done, but this plan sounds poorly thought out.
I actually stayed up until 4:45 am to watch this debate and had to get up at a semi-reasonable hour this morning, so excuse me if this gets incoherent at any point.
I am planning on voting for That One, but I had felt great respect for John McCain before this election season really got cranking and I was looking forward to a clean, honorable campaign on both sides that was about the very serious issues that America faces. Yow, have I been disappointed. McCain has taken the worst tactics used against him by members of his own party and put them on steroids.
For me, it’s all summed up by ‘drill, baby, drill’ and ‘bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.’ The Republicans have dippy slogans to offer and not much else, it seems to me. I loved that Obama called McCain on the Iran slogan, and was surprised he didn’t follow up when McCain brushed it aside as something said to a supporter off the cuff. Um, no, not really.
I thought that Obama came across as calm, intelligent, strong, and presidential. McCain came across as belligerent, restless, and crabby. What on earth was that hair plugs crack? If he wants to go after Biden, how about something substantial instead of the equivalent of ‘He’s ugly and his mother dresses him funny’?
I was fascinated by CNN’s squiggly lines across the bottom of the screen. It was interesting to watch them go up while Obama spoke and then dive down as soon as it was McCain’s turn.
Brokaw didn’t impress me at all. I thought he injected himself into the process too much instead of just guiding it.
That’s going to happen anyway, really. I don’t really understand how McCain thinks that the Gment can revalue homes on such a broad scale–the market will do that (and already is). There are too many homes in foreclosure to not have values fall.
I thought Obama won. McCain came across as cantankerous and spiteful.
Loving the That Ones! I want a Tshirt with that in small print over the left breast pocket.
Brokaw needs to go away.
I loved the last question but there’s no way that either of them could have answered it honestly without the other side pouncing on it and playing it 24/7 until the election. The question about Russia as evil empire was stupid. It’s not a question that can be answered in one word and almost everybody knows it. I’m glad both men chose to answer it the way they did.
McCain needs to stop trying to tell jokes.
And since everyone else it doing it, I’ll bash the moderator. I’ve always kind of liked Tom Brokaw but he was terrible last night. I know it’s his job to enforce the rules but it felt like he was trying to insert himself too much. Instead of a neutral, ‘Gentlemen, I’m going to have to ask to heed the warning lights and stick to the time limit’ he throws out a sarcastic, ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed these blinking lights we have here.’ It almost felt like he was trying to grab a mic and take a turn too.
Hey, pal, I live in Atlanta, and I’m sick and tired of this anti-Southern prejudice. You just take your uppity Yankee attitude and stick it –
Ah. Never mind.
Seriously, why have I not heard of this before? Senator McCain’s foreign policy aide is a paid lobbyist for a foreign government?
One minor note: I can’t remember exactly what McCain was saying, but at one point both my girlfriend and I remarked that he was starting to sound like the Penguin on the old Batman show.
He was talking about pork, and it was right before his “That One” Gaffe. He sort of crinkled his nose and gave a mild highpitched chuckle. I think that might be what you are talking about.
That’s what VPs are for: saying things you don’t want to say yourself because they’re too negative or cheap. The point of having an attack dog is letting the dog attack because that’s what they are made to do.
Anyway: there was a lot of repetition from the first debate and to a lesser degree the VP debate. Obama did score on the health care issue, I thought, and “I don’t understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11…” was a good response. There were some others and McCain actually ended up showing off less of his foreign policy chops, which can’t help.
I hate to judge these things on demeanor, but you really can’t escape the conclusion that McCain did not come off well. The faces and the tone he takes, more than in the first debate, did not help him. Voters are not going to dismiss your opponent in a debate just because you display some mild contempt. He’s good on the Daily Show, but his “campaign” jokes are bad. I know it’s hard to gauge when the audience has been told to stay silent, but he was just not funny and should lay off that stuff. Obama pre-empted several McCain attacks and McCain said whatever he wanted to say anyway, which makes it sound as if he’s not listening. Compare that to Obama, who seemed to spend a lot of his ‘off’ time staring right at McCain with a look that was somewhere between “oh yeah?” and “gotcha.” Obama doesn’t give a lot of clues as to what he’s thinking, which is apparently what people are responding to in these debates as being steady and presidential, but from that stuff I got the sense he’s feeling very, very good about how the race has shaken out since the last debate.
I’m not sure why people are complaining about “wonkishness.” Yeah, they did get bogged down in numbers sometimes. But between that and reciting stump speeches we’ve already heard, I’ll take some wonkishness and specifics. It was not a very exciting debate for sure. There were a couple of relevant questions they ignored. The most important, probably, was “will the economy get worse before it gets better?”
Does anyone out there think it won’t? Their answers were “No” (Obama) and “It depends” (McCain).
I think Brokaw was better than Ifill, but not very good. The doctrine question was a bad one, it just begged for vague answers and that’s all he got. The Manhattan Project vs. garage question on energy was an interesting question but a false dilemma; there’s no need to pick one. (McCain did vaguely address it by saying it should be left to private industry after the technology is commercially viable.) I understand he doesn’t want to let them just make a speech, but he needed to shut up about the time limits. Stop them if they are making a speech that doesn’t answer the question, but if they are actually answering the question there is no need to cut them off.
Unfortunately, McCain can’t get CNN over UHF with his hanger-wire antenna, so he couldn’t see the yellow lines in the last debate.
I think that’s a mischaracterization. Their answers were roughly the same. Obama said “No, but only if we do x, y, and z.” McCain said “It depends, based on whether we do a, b and c.” This was another one where if either said “Yes,” they would have bought themselves more harm than good.
I agree that McCain’s demeanor is his biggest problem. And considering he’s the one who wanted more of these Town Hall formats, he didn’t really look that good on the stage. Through no fault of his own, of course. He looked stiff and somewhat frail, especially next to the young and athletic Obama. And his pacing around the theater while Obama was speaking was odd. I think aside from the eye contact thing McCain came off much better in the first debate.
Also, what was McCain writing when they first arrived on stage. He shook Obama’s hand, then immediately ran to his stool to start writing down something furiously. Was he trying to get the notes he had just crammed into his brain down on paper before they escaped, or just giving himself something to do?
I’m still waiting to hear how bad McCain pissed off conservatives with this new $300 billion bailout for bad mortgages. Fiscal conservatism indeed.
You reminded me of a moment that I thought modern terminology caused a problem for McCain. Obama finished saying that we needed to shift medical records to be entirely computerized, and McCain got up and said that we need to put all our medical records “online”. I’m assuming he meant more or less the same thing as Obama, but the impression was that everyone would be browsing through my medical history.
Pity they didn’t take another minute and get the fonts right. The Obama campaign has done such a good job with their branding; why not go with it?
On an even more shallow note, Obama looked much better than he did at the first debate. I believe it’s because this time he hadn’t been up till all hours the night before trying to fix the economy.
McCain stole “you were wrong” this time. Last time it was “change”. I’m glad Obama has McCain back on his heels now, reacting as Obama leads. If they can keep this up, the campaign might be reasonably civil until November. Here’s hoping.
Here’s a link to a transcript, since I don’t think we’ve done that yet.
I believe you’re thinking of Obama’s answer to the first question, which was about how ordinary citizens would be “bailed out.” He spent most of that time addressing the failings of Bush’s policies but did offer some substantive answers at the end.
I’m referring to Brokaw’s question: “Are you saying to Mr. Clark and to the other members of the American television audience that the American economy is going to get much worse before it gets better and they ought to be prepared for that?”
Obama said “No, I’m confident about the American economy.” He said better regulation is needed, people need to be able to keep their homes, be able to pay their bills, and energy and health care need to be dealt with. And lobbyists are bad. I’m not saying any of those are false, but they’re not reasons the economy won’t get worse. I felt that was mostly a deflection.
That’s not to say McCain’s answer was way more substantive or anything- buying the loans won’t fix everything, and then McCain hit the “special interests” and said American workers are great. That contains a large amount of deflection too.
Yeah, exactly my point. I understand why it’s politically dangerous to say “yes.” It just has the virtue of being true. Even if their plans were enacted, there’s no realistic way it doesn’t get worse before the plan is in place, which is going to take months. And the winner won’t be in office until late January.
Two funny moments last night just from Obama’s body language. In one he was standing up, ready to answer the question and then Brokaw said, “Senator… McCain.” Obama looked like a little kid who just got told to go sit down.
Another was when McCain said something like, “I’m going to tell you Senator Obama’s secret” and Obama was sitting there looking at him with a Christmas morning expression.
I think that’s the most relaxed body language I’ve ever seen in a debate.
Ah, from the debate, here is the other moment where McCain refused to call Obama by name:
Not “he has…” or even “this senator is the most liberal big spender.” No, it was “this is the most liberal…” with a little gesture toward Obama.
Michelle Obama will be on The Daily Show tonight (Wednesday).
I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the reaction lines, but they did drop when Obama talked about spending money to help countries that might be affected by Russian aggression.
“That one” – the only time I’ve heard that is on TV, when the cop asks the victim to pick someone out of a lineup.
Someone in a Yahoo book group said today that she’s voting for McCain because he’ll be better for small business owners and because Obama wants to give people handouts. I wonder if she has the two candidates confused.