Second presidential debate: yadda yadda
Not much new. Bert stomped Ernie. Same conflict on Pakistan policy. Obama continues to put OBL in AfPak front and center, saying we need to pull out of Iraq and put some troops on the bin Laden hunt:
Obama: … we made a bad judgment going into Iraq in the first place when we hadn’t finished the job of hunting down bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda. So what happened was we got distracted, we diverted resources, and ultimately bin Laden escaped, set up base camps in the mountains of Pakistan in the northwest provinces there… that’s the central front on terrorism. They are plotting to kill Americans right now… And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority…
We can’t coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars and then he’s making peace treaties with the Taliban and militants… the popular opinion of America had diminished in Pakistan was because we were supporting a dictator, Musharraf, had given him $10 billion over seven years, and he had suspended civil liberties. We were not promoting democracy… [NYT]
TV commentators are harping on McCain referring to Obama as ‘that one.’ It was just shorthand for ‘that candidate’ IMO, but it looks bad. McCain took a petty shot at Biden’s hair plugs. It could’ve been a joke, but his delivery is terrible.
Bottom line: McCain had to shake things up and he didn’t. CNN poll: 2-1 saying Obama won this debate.
Full transcript. The tweets (I broke Twitter — posted too many times, and it rate-limited my cool hand at the tiller):
Rumor: Brokaw in the tank for McCain?
Dial testers are dinging the moderator already!
Brokaw loves his sonorous voice.
McCain looked right into Barry’s eyes for the handshake.
Obama stands well w/o lectern, walks over to questioner.
Obama still pauses in odd places in mid-thought.
Audience hates golden parachute, junkets.
‘bama preempts McCain tax lie in very first question, mentions middle class. Nice.
Questioners sitting in what looks like jury box. McCain starts rambling again. Energy independence is going to fix the mortgage crisis?!
McCain: I can out-bailout you. I’ll buy up Americans’ homes myself.
‘My friends.’ Drink!
‘Not you, Tom.’ Unnecessary.
Meg Whitman, who broke eBay, will run the econ?
Warren Buffet for treasury sec. First act: ban stock splits :)
Obama: middle class middle class middle class. Drink!
Obama can drop ‘g’s with the best of ‘em.
‘I left my campaign and suspended it.’ Or not. Lie.
It’s been 12 minutes without ‘earmarks.’ C’mon Mac!
McC: ‘cronies.’ Dial testers nose-dive.
Why are we buying toxic assets when the Brits are using the $ to recapitalize banks?
Barack actually answers question that McCain evaded: how does bailout help me?
Obama goes after British vote with purple tie.
Mustachioed listener in lime green tie looks distraught.
Both duck the question. Of course the econ will get worse before it gets better. Def’n of a recession.
McCain repeats ‘workers = fundamentals’ of econ. Preempts gaffe attack.
McCain and Brokaw are wearing the same tie. Apparently they do not coordinate.
Teresa Finch questioner has trouble reading short words.
Obama goes after Dubya, took 20 minutes.
McCain: I’ve worked against special interests, except when I’ve flipped on all of it.
McCain breathing sounds like a death rattle.
Earmarks, my friends, earmarks!
$3M earmarks while a trillion has just evaporated… yes, that’s the right focus. What would a fighter pilot call that? Target fixation?
The debate set looks like a Rothko. Blue, red, supersaturated.
Uncommitted love Obama on energy independence.
JFK ref. Nice. No Reagan yet?
McCain turns financial crisis into… earmarks! Drink!
Earmarks at 3 o’clock. Don’t fixate, jink. Eject! Eject! Eject!
‘We’re not rifle shots, we’re Americans.’ We’re cheap Saturday night specials!
Obama starts again with ‘You know, ‘ *sigh*. Stop!
‘Buy car made here, not Japan or S. Korea’… or India.
Obama’s purple tie jumps off his chest, attacks Larry Moustache’s green tie in deathmatch. Seriously, they clash.
Clinton was so much better at feelin’ yer pain.
Obama refs spending freeze from last debate. It’s like an in-joke.
McCain is into recycling… political jokes. Approval nose-dives.
‘Sen. Obama’s secret that you don’t know…’ is a small biz tax increase? I thought it was Seekrit Mooslim.
‘I am not in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy,’ except for this plan of mine that does.
Brokaw is interventionist in a way that Ifill was not.
I think this is the first time I’ve seen a candidate slapped down by a moderator!
Mmm, I love the smell of class warfare in the evening.
Dial testers: Women really hate Fortune 500 CEOs.
Listener in red paisley tie on green shirt has sense of humor.
Dial testers dive on McCain snark.
‘I’ve taken on my own party’ tests better than ‘not Miss Congeniality.’
Ooh, a commission. A blue ribbon commission!
This guy reminds me of novice debaters I’ve seen. Rambles, repetitive, fixated.
Best way to fix climate change is nuclear power?
McCain freaks out the environmentalist with talk of nuke reactors on navy ships. Nice touch.
McCain as clean energy is like Obama as a dirt bike rider. Not plausible.
O: Clean energy is like PC revolution. Nice. Who’s the Bill Gates?
Clean energy investments like DARPA. Slick analogy.
Larry Moustache blinks heavily. He’s been up all night working on that lime green tie.
Wave like that, I’ll look at you– because I can’t see the lights?
Manhattan Project vs. Silicon Valley– nice question. Forward-looking. Strategic. A bit meaningless.
McCain pivots back to energy bill, like Palin. Tunnel visioned target fixation.
F- earmarks again. Are you kidding me?
O: computerized medical forms. M: Whatsat now?
At this point McCain reminds me of Mr. Burns.
Mc: ‘That’ll reduce errors, as they call ‘em.’ That newfangled word.
Is this the right time for McC to be talking about deregulation?
Why is CNN showing uncommitted Ohio when the debate’s in Tennessee?
McC goes after Biden’s hair plugs, loses male vote.
McC: health care is a responsibility not a right, loses Fla vote.
Obama links health insurance to mother’s death, skyrocketing approval.
Obama slams Delaware banking laws, loses Biden’s vote :)
McC: We only intervene for sunshine and puppies and defending others’ freedom.
O: Invading country that had nothing to do with 9/11 while OBL sets up base camps. Yes!
McC has bad comic timing, comes off as bitter.
O has a tic of repeating figures. $79 billion dollars. $79 billion dollars.
O: no country has had econ decline and kept its military dominance. Correct.
Mod: What is Obama Doctrine? O: No Holocaust. A bit obvious, yes? I call Godwin’s Law.
McC starts talking Iraq, approval nosedives.
McC: Cool hand at the tiller. Mixed metaphor. Cowboy sailor?
McC sees your 300 dead Marines in Lebanon and raises 4,000 dead soldiers in useless war.
Oh yes, the hot pursuit question that Palin got.
Obama’s ‘Pahk-is-tahn’ is music to my ears. We hadn’ finished the job with bin Laden. Women like this.
So bizarre to hear a politician talking about reality on terrorism. ‘Central front on terrorism’ in AfPak.
Sec. Gates: WOT began in AfPak and will end there.
Obama slams Pak gov’t’s double dealing.
Women love Obama on Pakistan, men not so much. Men love the kill OBL line.
McC: ‘with us or against us’ on OBL is a mistake. ORLY?
McC condescending as hell.
McC: ‘O talks loudly.’ i.e.: ‘Sit down, boy!’
McC joking sounds terrible.
O slams Musharraf. Suspended civil liberties, voting against democracy.
McC: ‘I understand what it’s like to send young Americans into harm’s way.’ Because I never met a war I didn’t like.
‘I know how to get’ OBL - so why haven’t you yet?
McC: ‘I was responsible in the military’– he was a notorious screwup!
O: I know McKiernan’s name. He ain’t no McClellan.
O needs to torpedo this surge b.s. It had very little causality. Ethnic cleansing was the main cause.
McC is fixated on avoiding military defeat even if war is failing. Sunk costs fallacy, classic gambler mentality. This is how they go bankrupt.
Men love McC on Russian bear.
McC wins Cold War. Unfortunately, it ended.
Obama stays gracious, has mentioned he agrees w/McC a couple of times.
Obama is stuttering on Russia.
O links alt.energy to Russia.
McC says maybe, cute. Less rambly than usual.
McC: ‘Everything I learned was from a petty officer,’ including my petty attacks on Biden’s cosmetic surgery. You trollop!
McC: ‘Preconditions’ — drink!
McC takes courageous position of not allowing a 2nd Holocaust. Glad that’s cleared up.
Obama builds sentences using words like Lego bricks.
O tips hat to Michelle, funny.
Women love Barry. Men are holding back.
Next debate set: less Rothko, more Kandinsky, please.
McC: ‘I know what it’s like’ to repeat catchphrases endlessly.
McCain calls Obama ‘that one’:
on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008, 2:34 am in Barack Obama, Debate, Fashion, John McCain, Politics, Video clips › 
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The reason people are harping on it is that the moment was a clear embodiment of the attitude McCain is known to have in private about Obama, and something that has popped up in public, for example, in McCain’s refusal to lock eyes or really acknowledge Obama in the first debate, and his repeated contemptuous references to him.
I spent an entire night scratching my head and trying to divine what on earth McCain thought he was doing in that debate, and I think I finally figured it out. He made even a staunch Obama supporter like me feel absolutely sorry for him whenever he tried to crack one of his “jokes”. So all you gotcha types, why don’t you just send some sympathy votes to McCain and GET ORFFA HIS LAWN!!!
OK, so it wasn’t just me who thought the hair transplants remark was a shot at Joe Biden. Let’s also remember that Biden has spent the last two days off the campaign trail because of his wife’s mother’s death, so… STAY CLASSY, MCCAIN!
Some of the stuff they spouted, any one could have predicted ten second before they laucnhed into it. Afghanistan, taxes, experience,earmarks (what is the origin of this word??)., blah , blah
For the citizen who is not defaulting on a mortgage and has decent health insurance - I am not sure how JM’s housing plan would work (potential defaulters in their n’hood would get relief but not the potential non-defaulters? Huh?) BUT i sure understood Obama’s health plan.
But i must say, Obama’s campaign is callibrated like a Swiss watch.
As David Brooks said, in mock disgust, why not start heading to out to Mt. Rushmore already?
Both parties are fleecing taxpayers with the bailout hysteria. Liberals and conservatives can agree this pork-ridden legislation is bailing out the speculative special interests at the taxpayers expense. McCain and Obama talk vaguely about the “credit crunch” — neither can provide even a partial list of small businesses failing due the credit crunch It’s grand-theft America, bailing out Wall St.
Some amazing facts about this “alleged crisis”:
Percentage of Americans who own their homes outright (no mortgage): 33% (1/3 of Americans own their homes outright)
Percentage of Americans missing one mortgage payment: 6.5%
Percentage of Americans who default: 1.5%
Percentage of Americans paying their mortgage/taxes on schedule: 93%
Average equity owned in a home: 46.2%
Some references for these facts.
http://ask.yahoo.com/20060314.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2008/02/12/business/map3823166.shtml
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24988315/
Thanks V V.
Another thing I must throw in is why Obama pulled back on asking us to tighten our belts. Too cautious to upset a winning trajectory , perhaps? On the ther hand, it was a great “look a guy in the eye” moment that I think would have nailed it. We are adults , for chrissakes. he did say something about individuals conserving energy - but not enuf.
my takes - random thoughts.
this was a very odd debate - i would have preferred an in your face sparring over the issues- point and counter-point. without that, it’s just stock answers.
Brokaw was too polite. You need a whip in there.
McCain missed an opportunity when he said he’d worked with kennedy, lieberman etc. had he added HRC to that list, it would have gone well with the disenchanted demo’s.
Obama’s high point was the reference to his mother. Actually it’s hardly a high point. It shook me. I’m sorry guy. That’s a horrible story to have to tell. It probably gnaws him that had he had more money then, his mom would still be alive.
The other points were when he stated the US’ military policy vis-a-vis Georgia, Russia, Pakistan and Israel. McCain had a good point about Ukraine, but was overshadowd.
Did anyone really answer that last question? I tried to keep track but the two guys kept looping and weaving.
McCain communicated his seniority but it made him look dusty and fusty. The references to Teddy Roosevelt and other historical figures made me think, ‘was he alive back then?’
Yes! The biggest contrast between the two, that all the body language experts and other pundits are too wussy to say out loud - or at all - is Obama’s youth versus McCain’s old age.
Don’t get me wrong - 72 is much younger today than it used to be - but McCain’s health status and history make him seem a very old 72, like he was more 82 or even 92. I know people in their 70s, and 80s that are much healthier, and look it, than he does.
I was thinking, with all the walking around this format entailed, he might tip and fall over, and with his unsteady gait that was always a possibility. And that would be the end of the debate right there. There would be no need for a third one.
There’s an interesting piece by George Will favorably comparing McCain to Teddy Roosevelt, but in an unexpected way. According to GW McCain curbs excesses of TR (manifest destiny, manly battle, civic rights, big government, governmental intrusion, etc.). The Rise of TR by Edmund Morris is a thoughtful book on the subject.
Will’s column.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100303306.html
Rumsfeld certainly does, and he still reputedly walks 10,000 steps / 5 miles a day.
You all are better than me for watching that whole debate. I switched channels after about 15 snooze-inducing minutes. I’d heard it all from either candidate before, you know? I didn’t know both Senators Fiesty and Cool could be this boring.
I remain, as ever, slightly unenthusiastic about the whole thing and both choices, except for Palin, who is too green, but whom I like Who I like? I dunno, I guess I’m as stupid as you lot think she is because I’m not very good at writing.
Wow. I’ve never had an election like this where I really wasn’t sure what to do this close to the election. I bet there are more like me out there.
I’m sending John McCain my resume for position of Secretary of
State….I once saw Russia, China and Pakistan from an airplane.
vv_varaiya
haha, but, did you hunt a moose and skin it? :)
Sorry, I still like her even after her bad interviews, I just think negotiating pipelines and being a governor are real and tangible things, as tangible as community organizing or state senator. Also, she’s a quick study and her latest interviews are really good. Time will tell on Gov. Palin, so, we’ll find out. She’s got four years to learn, this election seems over to me.
I still don’t know what I’m going to do. Oh, procrastination…..
While on details - i think Obama kinda B/Sed talking up his tax relief to businesses. He stated that majority of businesses’ tax base is 250K a year and so they will fall into the tax relieved category. I think he is way off on that one. Now that one stopped me stirring the dhal.
The 2008 presidential election is a joke. Obama and Biden won their debates over one of the weakest presidential candiates in American history in McSame - Palin. If Obama-Biden does not win a landslide (300+ EV), then the election is rigged and/or the ‘Bradley’ affect will have taken place.
I heard a joke the other day: Sarah Palin
Another joke is SepiaMutiny, UltraBrown and other “I’m Brown/Desi and we need to show our pride even though most of us are wealthy doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc,. The White Man and White America is holding me down”…..puhleez….what a joke.
Anyway I still visit these sites though…shame on me.