Bloodthirsty Liberal

I agree:

What demeanor should McCain display tonight? Angry doesn’t work. Solemn doesn’t work. ake-smiley doesn’t work. Instead, McCain should go back to his roots and unleash his inner smart-aleck. If Obama accuses him of being erratic in a crisis, he should say: “So I’m erotic in a crisis? Who knew?”

This approach has a couple of advantages. First, it enables McCain to show the more appealing side of his personality. Second, it throws Obama off his game. His handlers have surely anticipated every possible attack line about Ayers and Wright. And as a good liberal, he’s waiting for the chance to say, “Have you left no sense of decency?” But he’d be hard put to defend against ridicule. The One can’t handle the jokes.

So to get ready for the debate, McCain should lay aside the notes, crack open a beer, and watch Animal House.

Is it racist of me to observe that these guys have switched roles? McCain, the old white fossil, is (or can be) off-beat and irreverent, while Obama, the hip young black dude, is as stiff as a corpse—and about as warm?

McCain jokes that his campaign is staffed by inmates on work-release, and it’s funny; Obama can’t because it might have an embarrassing element of truth to it.

He did, over and over:

* It’s “simply not true” that Barack Obama said he’d meet Iran’s president without preconditions, Biden insisted.

Yet when Obama was asked if he would in a debate during the primaries, he said yes - a position Biden back then termed “naive.”

* Biden said he’s “always supported” clean-coal technology - after stating emphatically only last month, “We’re not supporting clean coal.”

* Biden asserted - repeatedly - that the US spends more money on three weeks’ combat in Iraq than it’s spent in Afghanistan since the war began.

That claim’s only remotely intelligible if he limits Afghan expenditures merely to US rebuilding efforts - and even then, he’s off by a factor of three, according to State Department numbers.

* Also on Afghanistan, Biden insisted - repeatedly - that “our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work” there.

That may not be an out-and-out lie, but it took supposed foreign-policy neophyte Sarah Palin to bring any context or nuance to the statement.

What Gen. David McKiernan had said was that tribal realities in Afghanistan are very different than in Iraq - requiring a different form of cooperation.

But he flatly said more troops, and more local engagement, are needed.

Sounds like a surge to us.

* Then there was what might have been the biggest head-scratcher of the night. Said Biden of the Bush administration’s supposed Middle East follies:

“When . . . along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, ‘Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”

Huh?

Assuming that Biden was referring to when, in 2005, American and French pressure helped the Lebanese people kick Syrian troops out of Lebanon, who ever thought NATO occupation of that deeply divided country was a good idea?

As if America’s NATO allies would have gone in the first place.

But hey, as long as it makes Biden sound presidential.

Sound presidential? He doesn’t even sound like president of his high school class:

An analysis carried out by a language monitoring service said Friday that Gov. Sarah Palin spoke at a more than ninth-grade level and Sen. Joseph Biden spoke at a nearly eighth-grade level in Thursday night’s debate between the vice presidential candidates.

How can he be credited with even an eighth-grade level when he got so many answers wrong? American education fails again.

I did not watch the debate because I was given the choice between watching these fools argue and attending a concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under James Levine performing Brahms’ German Requiem.

One I’ll remember for the rest of my life as one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever been privileged to attend, the other will be forgotten after one news cycle.

When I got home, my wife was watching the debate on TV; her impression was that McCain was cleaning Obama’s clock. I walked in at the awkward “I-have-a-bracelet-too” moment, but I couldn’t be bothered to pick up the thread. I poured myself a glass of Cline’s Ancient Vines Mourvèdre and waited for an opportunity to switch over to the Red Sox.

But I’ve been interested in the media reactions. Mostly furious spinning, for which I have even less time than the primary source itself.

With two exceptions.

On the right, Jim Geraghty:

My guess is, everybody thinks their guy won tonight.

From where I sit, McCain had a surprisingly strong night. It’s obvious I thought the postpone-the-debate-oh-nevermind-we’re-back-on hokey-pokey was potentially a major, major misstep. Tonight, that seems like much less relevant news. If you were wavering on McCain, nothing you saw tonight should give you doubts and probably reassured you a great deal.

…

It’s not that Obama had a lousy night; I think he accomplished a mission he really didn’t need (got his base to jump out of their chairs at every answer) and missed on the most important task of the night: Seem ready to take over on January 20. Flustered is too strong a word, but Obama’s answers were a little halting early on, and he let his irritation/exasperation/disbelief with McCain show several times, and it wasn’t quite the right tone.

…

Deep down, I know what appeals to me in a debate isn’t necessarily what appeals to the country as a whole. But it’s really hard to say McCain had a bad night, and I think Obama seemed a little shaky at times tonight - his performance didn’t boldly and clearly say, “I know I’m new on the scene, but you can trust me; I am ready to succeed in the hardest job in the world.”

And from the Left, Mickey Kaus:

Before I get spun, I’d say: small, Pyrrhic victory for McCain. McCain wanted to make Obama seem naive and inexperienced. He did about 40% of that. Obama wanted to make McCain seem dangerously ambitious, bellicose and hotheaded. He did 0% of that. But a) the foreign policy stuff came after a long period on the economy, where McCain seemed a bit frenetic and Obama had the upper hand; and b) Obama didn’t seem non-credible, which may be enough to carry him through given all the other advantages he has. ..

More: c) When Obama talks about the struggling middle class, etc., he always says “they” (seems distant) or “you” (seems condescending). Why not “we” or “us.”? Or “my buddy Joe down the street”? A core problem, and one that shouldn’t be that hard to fix; d) The big areas where Obama could scare voters about McCain are Georgia/Ukraine/Russia and Iran. On Georgia, Obama threw away his leverage by essentially moving toward McCain’s position, up to including Georgia in NATO. I guess we really are all Georgians now. On Iran, McCain didn’t say anything particularly scary–if anything, he seemed able to dispel some of those legitimate fears, Reagan-style. He achieved that effect even more clearly on Pakistan:

[I]f you’re going to aim a gun at somebody, George Shultz, our great secretary of state, told me once, you’d better be prepared to pull the trigger. …
I’m not prepared at this time to cut off aid to Pakistan. So I’m not prepared to threaten it …

Another commentator suggested McCain won, but it wasn’t enough. That sounds about right.

A debate watch party?

A debate watch party?

Do Democrats have no lives? Who’s bringing the fruit cocktail in lime jello?

This Friday, we’ll reach another milestone in this campaign — the first debate of the general election, on September 26th at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Millions of Americans will tune in to watch Barack debate John McCain about America’s foreign policy and our role in the world.

Barack will share his plan to bring the change we need — to restore our place in the world, ensure security at home and abroad, and reestablish the United States as the world’s economic leader.

…

Watch the debate with friends and supporters, and talk about how you can get involved in this movement.

I recorded a brief message about these parties. Please take a moment to watch the video and sign up to attend a Debate Watch Party in your community.

This may be nitpicking, but I live in a neighborhood, not a community; I live among neighbors, not community organizers.

And if I have to be part of somebody’s “movement”, you can include me out, thank you very much.

I don’t think I’ll be invited to any Debate Watch Parties—not least because of the things I bellow dementedly at the screen when “Barack” is on television, lying.

Which, when he’s not stuttering, uh, is pretty much all the time.