Presidential Debate! Tonight!

A soul-mate of Alcee Hastings I see.

i didn't come away feeling like either one hit a home run.

that said, for whatever reason, i felt much more at ease when obama was speaking than mccain.

not just because i disagree with mccain's view of things for the most part, but i kept feeling like he was gonna jump over the podium and start shaking me around to get whatever point he was making across.

obama came up with a lot of things that i agree with him about; and tried to discuss it like an adult with adults.

mccain seems to want to cut all spending but military and entitlements. i suspect however that he would still make deep cuts into entitlements he didn't like. that leaves cutting all but military.

sounds too much like the soviet union to me. the ussr planned roughly 52% of their budget for military.

all in all, i still support obama.

I think being young enough to actually live out the full four years of the term and not hand over the presidency to a halfwit redneck anti abortion creationist who would have trouble pointing out another country on a map is a big point in one candidate's favour.

Not at all Bill

Everyone knows that McCain (following Hillary's lead) has criticized Obama for twice asserting he would meet, unconditionally, with the leaders of enemy nations.

When he brought up Kissinger, it was to suggest that even one of McCain’s top advisors, and a renowned geo-political expert, agreed with him - Obama.

If you wish to believe the supposed, but nonexistent, nuances of Obama's comment then you probably have swallowed his back pedaling explanation of his original two assertions.

He said what he said.

Trying to backfill the comments with the designed explanations of a pack of advisors is at best disingenuous.

He's not the only one who does such things, but he did it this time - plain and simple.

Obama like any master politician is skilled at dissembling on the fly.

PS: Has your Obamanic conversion brought with it the Liberal reflex of crying "STRAWMAN!"

Again with the drinking and posting, I see.

Cycloptichorn

An accurate impression.



What a surprise!

Might it have something to do with the very strong bias you carried into your living room?



No, not at all.

Do you acknowledge that equally biased supporters of McCain felt as if they needed a shower after listening to Obama's slippery comments, and they are just as regular as you?



Well which is it?

Entitlements = Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Vet Benefits, Federal employee retirement funds, unemployment compensation, food stamps and agricultural price support programs.

Which entitlement programs do you think he will "cut?"

Agro subsidies? OK by me and probably OK by you if you realized that the Willie Nelson "Farm Aide" for family farms was an absolute farce. There are no more "family farms," unless you include in this definition families that have incorporated. "Farmers" are big businessmen and they are milking the American taxpayer for every nickel they can get. Forget your classically leftist romantic notions of agrarian societies. If you want to get uber-fat on the DC teat - be a farmer. The abuses in this field require an entirely separate thread.

Food Stamps? Fraud is rampant and the controls around what the stamps can purchase it ridiculous.

Unemployment Compensation? A very worthy program, but anyone who has taken advantage of this program knows that abuse is rampant. Collect Unemployment - work off the books. Negotiate a severance package? You can still collect unemployment. Who is minding the public's store? Have you ever collected Unemployment and had to deal with the governmental zombies? The best outcome, other than their ignoring fraud, is that you don't get some anal-retentive public servant who busts your balls on technicalities because it gives her a cheap thrill.

Federal Retirement Funds? Doesn't it piss you off that these jimoches get to retire on almost or full pay after 20 years? I suspect that we have a plethora of Gov employees on A2K so perhaps you don't share my pain. I got news for you, if you can comfortably retire after working for only 20 years then you are among the lucky SOB's, and you are leeching off the incomes of the rest of us. It can't happen any other way. I'm all for retirement funds, but you should work more than 20 years to collect. Try the 30 or 40 years the rest of us have to endure.

So what's left?

Vet Benefits? Nope, not McCain. Have a problem with that?

Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid? Who really cares what McCain or Obama thinks about these entitlement programs? Neither of them can cut them without the approval of congress and congress with never touch them until the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse come up over the ridge.



Tough to rationally argue with an idiot.



A bigger surprise!!

Pretty pathetic, Finn. This is what Obama claimed Kissinger said:
McCain pretended Obama claimed Kissinger said he agreed with Obama's broader, much referred to position, but that isn't what he claimed.Now Finn; was that an honest mistake?

I haven't disputed that Obama made those statements. That he's added detail to them is neither here nor there insofar as what he correctly claimed Kissinger said. When did you stop admitting the truth in debate yourself, Finn?

No one has denied it. You're being as disingenuous as McCain.

All also irrelevant in regards to his claims of what Kissinger said. Kissinger did indeed say what Obama claimed he said.

No. I recognized obvious logical fallacies before I ever heard of Obama. This line of debate is pathetic, Finn. You're better than that.

How clever and eviscerating.

Once again:

Lady Braddock: "You sir are drunk"

Winston Churchill: "Yes indeed Mame, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."

Alas Cyclo, you are doomed to still being an idiot in the morning.

I need to save this one because undoubtedly you will post another

"Again with the drinking and posting, I see."

Do you have any friends?

Just curious.

come back to me when you can act like an adult.

Please Bill, resist this affection for "pathetic."

You don't really mean it or you don't understand its meaning.

(Then again perhaps you do - in which case I will hold off on further retort until you express yourself.)

Obviously you are buying onto the Immaculate Obama.

Obama twice, publicly, contended he would meet with the leaders of our enemy nations without preconditions.

Hillary battered him on it with good effect.

Now you are righteously parsing all of these statements to find some place where you are comfortable with defending your guy.

The simple fact of the matter is that Obama attempted to argue that Henry Kissinger agreed with him and not McCain.

This is pure and utter bullshit and all of your attempts to spin it otherwise are unbecoming.

i watched the debate the first time on msnbc. i'm watching it now off and on on cnn; it's really interesting watching the wave for the independents. it appears to be tilting way in favor of obama.

both surprising and i believe significant.

mccain may have more problems than we thought.

Focus Finn. I provided you a link to the transcript. It doesn't show what you and McCain wish Obama said. It shows what he actually said. This has nothing to do with me or your pathetic (feeble, weak, sad, useless) delusion that anyone who supports Obama does so rabidly. This is a simple matter of FACT.

Now that's a fearsome retort!

It always amuses me how many scions of the A2K Left find themselves limited to a childish "I know you are, but what am I? response. Not to be confused with the "You're the Poopy Head!" rejoinder of which they are equally fond.

Bottom Line: Save us your cowardice disguised in highhanded righteousness.

Put up or shut up.

If you feel unable to respond to my posts then slink away --- quietly.

Well I guess you did mean "pathetic," in which case I am now properly informed and advised for future reference.

Good God but you are sensitive about Obamania.

Methinks thou protests too much.

Yes Bill, the fact is that Obama was not trying to suggest that Kissinger supported him and not McCain...

If you insist, but it's pretty pathetic of you.

It's super sensitive of me to point out McCain's logical fallacy and pretty pathetic of me to point out the truth to you? Who are you... and what have you done with the Finn that thinks before he posts?

I didn't see that... great answer!

I noticed Biden hitting the "condescending" thing earlier, and CNN was picking up on that too before I turned it off (at about 11). I agree the repeated "you don't understand" phrase was both condescending and old-mannish -- very "get off my lawn you damn kids."

It was a goad, but it was a fair goad. At first there was an assumption of confusion (I don't remember if Obama said anything) but then a McCain person issued a statement saying, no, McCain wasn't confused. He really meant to say that. I can find that if you'd like.

Is anyone who has posted here so far an undecided voter? Even a waverer?

Thomas, perhaps. Can't think of anyone else.

The importance of the debates is for the undecideds and the waverers. Those of us posting here weren't waiting for the debates to help us decide who should be president. MANY voters are still undecided or wavering, though. Those of us posting here are not necessarily a good sample, then.

I noticed that too, and was happy about it. That's part of why I wasn't posting here at the same time -- too much to keep my eyes on! The actual candidates (body language et al), the captions, and the uncommitted voter wave. (The voters were here in town, I wanted to go over and have a chat with 'em...)

The colors were interesting -- the green (independent) and red (R) would combine to make yellow, and then green and blue (D) would combine to make light blue. The wave spent a lot more time light blue than yellow.

We had house guests come in during the live broadcast of the debate and this interrupted the flow and we all missed quite a bit talking to each other. I watched the re-run by myself later. No memorable sound bites. No killer lines. No knockout punch.

Much comment has been made about eye contact. McCain maintained a strict debate posture addressing and watching the moderator throughout. Obama did watch McCain as McCain spoke, but made no eye contact with him when he (Obama) was speaking. McCain was better with specifics. Obama was his usual smooth self but also avoided getting into much technical substance which is his style.

McCain consistently referenced Obama as "Senator Obama". Obama referenced McCain mostly by his first name (and also "Tom" and also "Jim".)

Both were using rehearsed, memorized phrases that made them sound like they were giving just another stump speech (and also makes these things painfully boring). Given that McCain spent so much less time in debate prep than Obama did, however, I was impressed at his ability to recall and recite a pretty good list of historical data and difficult to remember and pronounce names. Obama cannot touch McCain in either experience or knowledge on foreign policy.

Other than the obvious misstatements--it's pretty hard to give a tax cut to 95% of Americans, for instance, when far fewer than that pay any taxes--probably the most memorable lines that will be used are Obama saying, eight or nine times I think, that Senator McCain is right, and McCain saying probably close to that many times that Senator Obama doesn't understand.

The polls are split. Obama supporters think he won. McCain supporters think he won. Despite organized focus group analysis, I doubt independents have been swayed one way or the other based on this one speech.