Post-Debate Blah-Blah-Blah-age
We’ll kick off with The New Republic, which apparently thinks Obama stunk the place up, given its “They both lost” take. TNR and I agree on one point.
The whole debate was weirdly imitative. You brag about your soldier’s bracelet, I’ll brag about my soldier’s bracelet! Obama was more afflicted with this imitation disorder — he called for giving Georgia and Ukraine NATO Membership Action Plans “immediately,” a stance Sarah Palin was derided for taking in her interview with Charlie Gibson, and McCain has already released a post-debate ad featuring clips of Obama agreeing with the senator from Arizona.
Roundup, a work in progress, starts with the lefties:
Greg Sargent at TPM, is more honest:
John McCain seemed to be the candidate on the offensive tonight in some key exchanges, and the economic meltdown didn’t prevent the debate from being mostly about national security — turf favorable to McCain, at least tonight. But ultimately, there were no real game changers.
Maybe not, but how about being entirely at ease after a couple of tumultuous days the left was cast as a desperation bid, while the multi-tasker stumbled over his words? There’s what may be an oblique reference:
The driving tension of tonight’s debate was that it was originally supposed to be about national security — and yet the entire first half ended up being about the economy. Obama had a decisive edge throughout the first half. But when it segued into foreign policy, there’s little question that McCain projected more authority and confidence, and landed more blows than Obama did, though it’s unlikely that any of those blows were devastating enough to matter in the long run.
Obama headed into this debate in a commanding position. The primary question at the outset was how Obama would use his advantage — would he try to go after McCain aggressively and damage him even further, or would he remain aloof and hope McCain would come across as attacking out of desperation?
The surprise of the night was that McCain was able to seize the offensive and frame the foreign policy debate on his own terms without looking like he was desperate. Indeed, if anything, the dynamic shifted a bit back in McCain’s direction.
Points to Sargent for managing to focus on style points and ultimate substance of the debate despite his partisan lens, though he goes on to misread various exchanges. Hey Greg, have another gander at the eye chart through these specs.
Here’s one Obamist who thinks McCain came across as contempuous, grumpy. WPost’s Robinson must have been watching a different debate Sargent, as was Sargent’s boss. TPM’s Josh Marshall also finds McCain contemptuous, but calls it a draw (translation from the original Lefty: “McCain Won”), noting ruefully that McCain didn’t do the nutty trip-wire vet thing like he predicted.
Kaplan at Slate: Gives McCain a nod on style points but proclaims, “Obama wins on foreign policy.” Thoughtful, considered wishful thinking.
Scored on debaters’ points, the match was close. Judged on the substantive issues, especially on which candidate has the more realistic view of the world, Obama won hands down.
OK, enough of those guys.
Howie Carr, Boston Herald: It’s Mac by a bracelet.
Barack’s leading in the polls, there were no killer soundbites, George Bush is not going away before Nov. 4, and foreign policy is, after all, McCain’s strong suit. But last night anyway, McCain bloodied Obama, again and again.
McCain is tough, Barack is Harvard.
Somehow, against all odds in this rotten year for Republicans, McCain hangs around. He seems to be on the ropes, and then he pulls another surprise. After an unimaginably bad 10 days for any Republican, he’s still there.
Barack Obama kept saying last night he “agreed” with “John.” McCain said “Sen. Obama” didn’t get it. McCain said he’s got the mojo because he went to Afghanistan, Obama said he’s got it because his running mate is Joe Biden. Joe Biden?
How about the closing statements, you know, the ones with the personal touches.
Obama: “My father was from Kenya.”
McCain: “When I came home from prison.”
Sometimes you forget how hard-nosed McCain is. He spent his formative years in a box at the Hanoi Hilton. At the same point in his life, Barack Obama’s biggest concern was getting his car booted in Somerville for nonpayment of parking tickets.
Roger Simon at Politico, Mac is Back:
John McCain was very lucky that he decided to show up for the first presidential debate in Oxford, Miss., Friday night. Because he gave one of his strongest debate performances ever.
While Barack Obama repeatedly tried to link McCain to the very unpopular George W. Bush, Bush’s name will not be on the ballot in November and McCain’s will.
And McCain not only found a central theme but hit on it repeatedly. Obama is inexperienced, naive, and just doesn’t understand things, McCain said.
Sure, McCain is a pretty old guy for a presidential candidate, but he showed the old guy did not mind mixing it up. He stood behind a lectern for 90 minutes without a break — you try that when you are 72 — and he not only gave as good as he got, he seemed to relish it more.
At least twice after sharp attacks by McCain, Obama seemed to look to moderator Jim Lehrer for help, saying to Lehrer, “Let’s move on.”
True, the majority of the debate was fought on McCain’s strongest ground: foreign affairs. And true, McCain’s feet were not held to the fire as to why he urged the postponement of the debate in order to secure a financial bailout package in Washington, but then decided to show up without any such agreement in hand.
But it didn’t seem to matter much. McCain just pounded away on his central argument: Obama just didn’t “understand” how to deal with Pakistan; how dangerous it is to meet with foreign leaders without preconditions; how serious the Russian invasion of Georgia was; the price of failure in Iraq.
“He doesn’t understand, he doesn’t get it,” McCain said of Obama, also saying, “There is a little bit of naiveté here.”
…
Obama eventually realized that McCain had to be attacked not just for his ties to George Bush but also for his own record, and Obama accused McCain of saying the Iraq war “was going to be quick and easy” and that weapons of mass destruction would be found.
“You were wrong,” Obama said.
But McCain attacked back. “I understand why Sen. Obama was surprised and saddened that the surge succeeded beyond his wildest expectations,” he said.
McCain seemed to be enjoying himself. He smiled a lot, mostly when Obama was talking, though his smile was really more like a smirk.
Simon makes the major style … to the point of substance … point. Supposedly desperate McCain was calm and unflappable despite his much-lefty-vaunted desperation.
Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard, about that Kissinger exchange:
Henry Kissinger believes Barack Obama misstated his views on diplomacy with US adversaries and is not happy about being mischaracterized. He says: “Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.”
Charles Hurt at NY Post, A Tale of Two Bracelets.
Barack Obama made one thing crystal clear in last night’s debate: He simply doesn’t care if we win or lose the war in Iraq.
“Nobody’s talking about defeat in Iraq,” Obama said - trying desperately to make John McCain stop talking about the single most important decision of Obama’s very short career in the US Senate.
That was whether, during the most hopeless days of the war in Iraq, we should send in added troops to turn the tide of American bloodshed and stamp out the rise of terror in a country we had long before decided to invade.
Choosing certain defeat, Obama said no to the surge.
It wasn’t his war. Why should he sacrifice some of his political capital just to avoid an American military defeat? All the blood sacrificed by our soldiers wasn’t on his hands.
…
One of last night’s most telling moments came when McCain revealed a wristband that had belonged to a soldier killed in Iraq given to him by the soldier’s mother. Do everything in your power, the mother told McCain, to make sure “my son’s death was not in vain.”
“I’ve got a bracelet, too,” Obama said - given to him by the mother of a dead soldier who asked Obama to “make sure that another mother’s not going through what I’m going through.”
Here lies the difference between these two men:
Obama will accept defeat if continuing on hurts too much. For McCain, any mission where defeat is an option is a mission not worth fighting in the first place.
Gerald Seib at WSJ with a relatively even-handed big picture take.
The contrast with the first half of the debate, devoted largely to the crisis gripping Wall Street and how it will affect the broader economy, was stark. In that session, Sen. McCain seemed intent on stealing the two themes that have been the hallmark of Sen. Obama’s candidacy — hope and change — in explaining how he would respond.
Suddenly Sen. McCain, widely portrayed in recent days as erratic and angry in his response to the collapse of Wall Street firms and the proposal to rescue them, was a beacon of hope.
Though he departed Washington with bipartisan negotiations on a rescue package teetering, Sen. McCain said he was confident a package would be approved soon. Though the pictures of Washington in the past two days were largely of a capital gripped by partisan bickering over that rescue package, he proclaimed bipartisanship was emerging from the mess. And though the theme has caused him great grief in recent days, he returned to his declaration that the American economy is fundamentally sound despite the shock waves moving through it.
And for his part, Sen. Obama was caustic about the tax cuts Sen. McCain has proposed, saying they are both unaffordable and particularly ill-suited for a time when the country is talking about spending billions to bail out financial businesses.
Yet it was the argument about America’s role in the world for which this debate is more likely to be remembered. The deepest question about both candidates throughout the campaign has been about how they would project American power, and whether the McCain approach would be too strident, and the Obama approach too reserved. Would the McCain approach overemphasize confrontation and shortchange diplomacy? Would the Obama approach overemphasize diplomacy and shortchange strength?
They didn’t resolve the questions in the debate, but rather illuminated them. In the closing minutes, Sen. McCain said his foe doesn’t have the “knowledge or experience” to run national-security policy. Sen. Obama said his opponent doesn’t seem to understand that it has been a mistake to focus so much American time and treasure on Iraq when, “In the meantime, [Osama] bin Laden is still out there.” The differences are real, and weren’t hidden on the Mississippi stage Friday night.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:48 am on Saturday, September 27, 2008
2 Responses to “Post-Debate Blah-Blah-Blah-age”
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September 27th, 2008 at 11:22 am
It’s ludicrous to think that we would have found bin Laden if not for the invasion of Iraq. Would not invading Iraq somehow open up Pakistan for invasion? If bin Laden made it out of Tora Bora alive, then that’s where he’s been.
September 27th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
But Senator Obama would solve that problem by invading Pakistan, and getting at Osama that way, as he suggested some weeks ago. Nobody told him, and he did not have the wit to understand for himself, that our supply lines to Afghanistan run through Pakistan. Perhaps Senator Obama has not consulted a map recently, and thinks we can supply our troops through Afghanistan’s nonexistent seaports. Or perhaps he is just so ignorant that the question of logistics never entered his head.