Debate
Jim Lehrer? Gimme a break. Wasn’t Olbermann available? Liveblogging, with a liveblogger roundup and some instant punditry:
(Welcome Blairites. Better late than never. Hope all’s good on my ancestral island. Post-debate analysis, mockery, etc., includes: Multi-Task To Do List: Back Pat … Check; Mythic Alpha Male Rides In From The West; Fact Check or WaPo’s Strange Love for Nazis and Commies; McCain Bash turns out to be a pile; Post-Debate Polling, It’s McCain!; and Post-Debate Blah-Blah-Blah-age. Friday’s debate liveblogging follows.)
So far, McCain sounds at ease, Obama, halting. Maybe it’s true what they say. No good without a script. Point McCain.
Best line: “I didn’t win Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate.”
Next best line, re Obama’s lib voting record: “It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far left.”
(Memo to Obama: repeatedly agreeing with McCain may be the right thing to do, but it won’t win the debate.)
Obama: Bush! George Bush! George Walker Bush!
McCain: My name is John McCain. The American people know the difference.
McCain: “We are winning in Iraq, and we will come home with victory and with honor.” Shoutout to Petraeus and the surge.
Obama: “What Kerry said.”
McCain: “The next president of the United States is not going to have to decide whether we should have gone into Iraq. He’ll have to decide how we leave, when we leave and what we leave behind …” Notes that Obama opposed the surge, and wasn’t much interested in finding out about it.
Obama: “Sen. McCain is right … ” (Meet America’s newest surge enthusiast.) However, “What Kerry said.” And Americans need to decide “who is best equipped to make decisions about how we use our military.”
McCain: “I’m afraid Sen. Obama doesn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.” Ouch. That’s getting close to a “I knew Jack Kennedy.”
McCain: “I knew Waziristan.” Adds he doesn’t plan to announce that he’ll be attacking Pakistan … until he does it.
Obama: “Well, let me explain my position … I wouldn’t sing ‘Bomb Iran.’”
McCain: Lebanon, Somali, Gulf, Iraq … Vietnam … been there, done that. Says he won’t let down a Wolfeboro, N.H. mom who doesn’t want her son’s death to be in vain.
Obama: “I’ve got a bracelet, too.” He doesn’t want any soldier to die again, ever.
Good luck with that.
Obama: It’s all about Afghanistan.
McCain: “You might think Sen. Obama … would go to Afghanistan.” Ouch. Stop that.
McCain re Iran: “Existential threat to the state of Israel” and to the rest of the region. Russians thwarting UN action. “League of Democracies” ready to actually do something.
Mentions some places in Europe. Good luck with that.
McCain adds, Iran is killing Americans in Iraq. “This is a serious threat … have no doubt about the ultimate result of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.”
Obama: Mullahs are a pack of terrorists, I’ve always thought this, even when I didn’t and I wanted to talk to them without conditions. (OK, he didn’t exactly say that.) ”Tough, direct diplomacy.” Not talking didn’t work in North Korea. (Neglects to mention that talking hasn’t worked, either.)
McCain: “Thank you, Sen. Obama, for throwing me in that briar patch.” History lesson/how-to on talking to terrorists, autocrats, etc., ensues.
Obama: Bush engages in diplomacy … Clinton policies failed …
McCain: Says he won’t be setting White House visiting sked before he’s in there. By the way, sitting down with A’jad legitimizes the “Israel is a stinking corpse” remarks.
Obama: When I said no preconditions, I never meant no preconditions. Will be very, very stern with A’jad.
McCain: Good luck with that.
Obama: Will talk tough with Russia.
McCain: “Both sides ought to show restraint?” Current events lecture on Russia’s empire-restoration project ensues.
Obama: Sen. McCain is absolutely right.
(Memo to Harvard Law … if you haven’t beefed up the debate classes, now’s a good time. I’d start by firing Barack’s Harvard debate coach. Hire McCain’s … uh, never mind, McCain’s debate coach is running for president.)
Obama: Sen McCain and I agree on energy, however “walk the walk, talk the talk …” Hey John, that’s a good line! Mind if I use that?
McCain: Brief review of walking, talking on energy issues.
Obama, re nuke power: I’ve never said I disagree with your position.
(OK, now we’re arguing about Iraq again … Obama walked back into the Iraq quagmire with his AQ-Afghanistan myopia. McCain whips out the AQ eye chart: A-F-G-H-A-N-I-S-T-A-N … good, now read the next line. Can’t? I’ll help. I-R-A-Q.)
Obama: I agree with John McC … I mean, the next president has to get all the strategic challenges.
McCain: No on-the-job training required.
Obama: My dad was from Kenya. America is great! It’s just not good enough.
McCain: After I was tortured for five years by Vietnamese communists, I came home and found it in myself to make peace with them.
OK, it’s over. McCain, at ease, knowledgeable, experienced, unruffled. On the attack without being mean. Condescending, maybe a little. Obama, halting, searching for words and facts, on the defensive. His digs when he did get them in sounded moderately well-memorized … and they should be, every rank-and-file lefty blogger is reading off the same cue cards. Never a good sign when you are compelled to agree with your opponent repeatedly. Obama came across like a guy who’s been distracted by the economic crisis, which caused him to be dragged kicking to DC yesterday. McCain came across like someone who can multi-task.
I watched on CBS, which likes this as the soundbite of the night:
“The next president of the United States is not going to have to decide whether we should have gone into Iraq. He’ll have to decide how we leave, when we leave and what we leave behind …”
I thought it was at or near the top, as well. But it was only one of a number of neatly delivered … how to put this diplomatically … helpful pointers McCain offered Obama and the American electorate. Also good, a couple of zingers:
“I didn’t win Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate.”
And, “It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far left.”
Note: Those soundbites are accurate, however, some liberties were taken with quotes and paraphrases within the text above to better help the candidates express what they were actually trying to say, or in some cases to help them say it less windily.
Hey, turns out Washington Post’s Fix blogging Cillizza was right: McCain Wins Debate:
Although the fate of tonight’s presidential debate in Mississippi remains very much up in the air, John McCain has apparently already won it — if you believe an Internet ad an astute reader spotted next to this piece in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal this morning.
“McCain Wins Debate!” declares the ad which features a headshot of a smiling McCain with an American flag background.
Never doubt the inner wisdom and foresight of cheesy Internet ads.
Also liveblogging:
Gateway’s got your Mississippi Madness.
Top-shelf house favorite Vodkapundit’s drunkblogging at Pajamas, as long as his legs can stand it. Which shouldn’t be a problem, he’s a pro.
Tigerhawk is … Tigerhawk-blogging.
Malkin’s in the game, as long as her stomach can take it. Hangs in and Who Won? McCain, Malkin says grudgingly, for no soundbiteable gaffes, while Obama … might have just been having trouble constructing his sentence … but sure looked like he couldn’t remember whose name was on his bracelet.
Ed at Hot Air wraps it up.
Liveblogging roundup with good yuks at Instapundit, and thanks for the link, Glenn. Welcome, Punditeers, don’t be strangers, come on in.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:30 pm on Friday, September 26, 2008
2 Responses to “Debate”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Thanks for the wrap-up. I’m having to watch the replay. McCain is kicking butt, but the FOX focus group went for Obama. Unbelievable.
September 27th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
[...] by Stephen Green on 27 Sep 2008 at 01:10 pm How the hell did I miss Jules Crittenden’s liveblog of the [...]