All the geese are honking today about how the debate wasn't a "game changer." For once, I'm in agreement with the MSM. It wasn't. It can't be. For one thing, the squawking, barnyard fowl on the MSM have a vested interest in making the whole thing look like a neck-in-neck contest. (By the way, whenever I hear an announcer on MSNBC say "for analysis of tonight's debate, we go live to Nora O' Donnell," something inside me dies.) McCain would literally have to have a flashback on camera and call Obama a gook in order for these twittering skin cells to call it anything other than a tie, and even then they'd say McCain was 'gambling' and acting 'bold'. If McCain said the world was flat and we have to start burning witches and Obama objected, these idiots would spend the next week arguing about who looked more presidential. "Well, Chris, McCain really stood up and looked tough there, don't you agree?" Chris: "I agree, let's go to Pat Buchanan for more analysis."
Ugh, God. Can it get worse?
Whoops. I should never say that. Whenever I do, it DOES get worse.
Secondly, Obama can't put McCain away. If Obama shows the merest hint of anger or indignation, if he comes across as anything other than a perfect gentleman, the ghouls on FOX News will rise from their graves and howl "angry black man." And Mr. stupid, blue collar, hard working, salt-of-the-Earth racist low-information American voter will listen. Victory McCain. So Obama has to hold back; he has to sprinkle his statements with collegial remarks like "I agree with John" and "Senator McCain is correct about that, but . . ."
That's why the debate wasn't a game changer. Nonetheless, Obama demonstrated in many ways that he is infinitely more qualified to be president than McCain. That's what troubles me.
At every turn, Obama displayed those unsavory Adlai Stevenson-Esque characteristics that don't "play well" with the peasants, er, the voters. He was intelligent, he was thoughtful, he was flexible and pragmatic. McCain, on the other hand, simply reached his withered talons into a moldering bag of tough guy cliches that do play well with the peasants, er, I mean voters. "I've been there." "I'm experienced." "I will stand up to our enemies," etcetera and yawn.
Guess who "won" on the foreign policy part of debate, at least according to the philosophers on the MSM?
There were two clearly different mentalities on display. McCain is a simple-minded reactionary: there is evil in the world, we must confront it; Christopher Cox fucked up, we must fire him; Iran is building nukes, we must bomb them; Putin is evil, my friends, we must confront the Soviet Union. . . what's that, Joe? Oh, I mean Russia, Russia. He's an unimaginative bully whose first, middle and last response to any situation is force. Obama is more of a potential statesman who will play chess and horse trade. McCain is a stupid, mentally ossified old fart who wants to drop bombs around. He's Kaiser Wilhelm II. Obama, at the very least, will re-introduce Americans to something called diplomacy.
That's what worries me. All the qualities we so desperately need in a president are precisely those qualities that are denigrated by the MSM. They also don't "resonate" with the bible thumping, NASCAR watching, Travis Tritt loving Heartland Hicks who've held our electoral process hostage for the last eight years.
(Oh yes, he's also . . . black.)
Yes, Obama won. Will it matter?
1 comment:
I agree that Obama was deliberately cool.
McCain was transparently angry. I think it goes beyond the debate or even the campaign.
John McCain suffered unimaginably in service to the rest of us. When his sacrifices are denigrated or ignored by those who never endured such treatment, his anger is understandable. I believe this instance is more revealing than the debate.
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