the dabate continued

McCain has a good line: my opponent has the most liberal voting record in the Senate. It is hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left. His opponent, graciously, laughs at the quip.

So far the only laughter from McCain has been nervous laughter.

The great flaw in McCain’s whole gambit on the bailout package was that McCain never had a policy disagreement with Mr. Bush.

McCain spending freeze is answered with what about early childhood education? Of course we have been shoveling money at these useless programs for years but who wants to be against children? Certainly not John McCain.

Strange thing about this debate is that McCain keeps changing the subject. The reason you keep changing the subject is that McCain can’t challenge Obama in his own terms.

 Obama mentions  that Roosevelt purchased a lot of mortgages and in the end the government made money on it. Why doesn’t McCain seize on this? Why are we giving money to banks? Roosevelt gave money to people.

Obama challenged McCain spending argument by saying that under the McCain Bush administration spending has gone up and McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time. What is McCain’s answer? His answer is general, not specific his answers that he opposed Bush on a lot of things. That is true. But it is not directly answer the question why did spending go up so quickly under Bush? How would’ve been different if McCain had been president?

 The war. McCain outlines his support of the surge. His argument is clear enough.

Obama changes the question. Should we have fought the war in the first place? His argument is that we took our eye off the ball. Obama positions himself as not against military force but against using it unwisely. To a person without strong convictions on this question his argument seems quite reasonable.

McCain largely ignores a llama’s argument and goes back to talking about the   surge.

 All bomb a now directly answers McCain’s argument. It’s a decent argument he says yes the surge worked. It was a solution to a problem that we had caused. McCain refuses to look at Obama when he is being addressed and looks pathetic and weak.

McCain talks about reaching out to the opposition. But he doesn’t look at the other guy when he’s talking to him. If you want to say you’re the guy who can reach out to the other side you might show the courage to make eye contact.

Obama even has a beautiful answer for voting against the troops, McCain lacks the mental agility to answer it.

 Obama says that we should have stayed in Afghanistan and had more troops there.

Finally McCain directly answers an argument. McCain says that General Petraeus and Osama bin Laden agree on one thing, that Iraqi is the central front in the war. Not Afghanistan. That is a good answer. Unfortunately, McCain does not expand on why it is the central front in the war.

 I liked McCain’s counterpunch, saying that if you are so concerned about Afghanistan why didn’t you ever go there? Why didn’t your subcommittee ever have a hearing on the subject?


McCain gave his moving speech about Lebanon. But he didn’t mention that the group that killed the Marines in Lebanon was back and indeed created by Iran.

He makes this pitch about a league of democracies. Doesn’t that put the ball, or the game, on the opponents preferred field? Depending on our so-called friends in the world. Isn’t McCain’s argument that the Iranians won’t do anything until they believe the threat of military force is real? “Act with our friends and allies” is not a winner for McCain against a man that draws legions of foreign admirers.

Though one counters that we need Russia and China, even though they are not democracies. Then he comes back to his “not talking to someone we are punishing them” thinking is a mistake argument,  and says he will engage in tough negotiation. What makes the negotiation tough? Only what you threaten to do if the negotiation doesn’t work. What does Obama threatened to do with the negotiation doesn’t work? Well….

McCain comes out with Obama’s remark somewhere in ancient history about being willing to negotiate without precondition. Obama slides away from this blow with ease. Negotiate without precondition becomes “I reserve the right to me with anyone if I think preserve American security.” Presidential negotiation becomes having direct contacts. Obama even says the negotiations may not work.

He says that by negotiating with them we will strengthen our ability to form new alliances. Of course the exact opposite is also true. If we if we had negotiated with them alone and the negotiations broke down, our so-called allies would merely say well if only we cleaver Europeans had been involved. The fruit of McCain’s inability to make this argument is that he will not take it to its logical conclusion. Obama is correct, these differences in how to negotiate are essentially tactical. The real difference is what are we willing to do if negotiations don’t work; it is because no one is not willing to use military force that negotiations are doomed to not work.

McCain answers Obama’s argument by trying to hold him to his statement in the debate of almost a year ago. McCain does make a good point about how the President negotiating with someone legitimizes them. McCain gets the South Koreans are 3 inches taller number wrong. As I recall it’s much more than 3 inches.  The number I recall was 12 inches.

McCain looks weak because he is not willing to look at Obama. Why is he not willing to? Because he can’t be drawn into a direct argument.

A now McCain is trying to argue. He has figured out that Obama is parsing words. He realizes that Obama is changing “without preconditions” to “preparations.” That is a decent moment for him and it is the one time he actually looks Obama.

McCain shows off his ability to pronounce weird foreign names in discussing Russia and Georgia.

Obama defends his initial reaction to the Russian invasion. Said I called it wrong and illegal. This is a strong reaction for Obama. Obama says that I warned the president that we have Russian peacekeepers in south Georgia. That makes no sense. We should get an international envoy and international peacekeepers. Why didn’t anybody think of that before? I suppose the reason that there are Russian peacekeepers there is because, well, it didn’t occur to anyone to ask someone else to do it. What a pity that the woman was not on hand with this statement was made but was it a mistake? Of course not. There are Russian peacekeepers there because the Russians are willing to fight and kill and die for something. the Russians are there because the Russians are willing to use force. They demanded to be there.  The Russians are there because the Russians consider using force a part of diplomacy. They do not, like Obama, consider sending an envoy a strong reaction.

Obama used the phrase walk the walk and talk the talk in relation to the Georgia Russia situation. Should he really use that phrase? Doesn’t walking the walk in defending allies from aggression entailed using force?

“What I’ve said is that we have to store nuclear wastes safely?” Oh, another great idea. Why didn’t we think of that? My plan was to put in mason jars and back of my grandmothers house. How fortunate that Obama came along and told us of the folly of our ways.

McCain says I know our allies and I can work more closely with them. Is that a good argument for him to make? One of the creepiest things about Obama is how much foreigners like him. One of McCain’s strongest ads was criticizing the one for his popularity among four. By talking about how popular he is with foreigners he undermines his own argument, saying that it is not a bad thing and that it is not in fact true that Obama is popular with foreigners.

 Obama calls for more spending on nuclear proliferation. There is no problem to which Obama does not propose spending more money as the solution.

Obama takes the opening given to him by McCain, graciously complements McCain on his opposition to torture, and then goes on to rhapsodize about the importance of being liked by foreigners.

McCain talks about Obama’s dangerous plan for having a specific date for withdrawal. You know what I think is the weakness of this argument? Obama doesn’t really even believe his own plan for one will not be held to that date, if he decides it would be a bad idea to leave that quote the date, then he will talk his way out of it.

Obama makes the “Al Qaeda is resurgent,” and became has not so far answered it. Al Qaeda is resurgent in Pakistan. But it is and how he did in Iraq. And it is doubly hated in Afghanistan.

No one talks about a broader strategic vision. McCain does not have a broader strategic vision. He has a broader feeling, he has deeper commitments, and convictions. But he does not have a clear argument. He has a deep belief that this is a dangerous world with bad people and it, and that you deal with them through strength and credible threats of force. That you deal with your enemies by standing by your friends.  He is right. But he does not have the mental flexibility to make that argument. Sadly, he only has the character.  His problem is that he does walk the walk, it is the talk that trips him up.

Obama says that our standing in the world has gone down, but the way children world looked the United States is changed. Why doesn’t McCain say, yeah, asked the kids in Iraq how they feel about American soldiers. McCain doesn’t have the flexibility to make an argument in real time. He answers with one of his canned but good stories.