I Just Walked Out On It

[Michael Tee]

Nobody is making any progress.  I was expecting Obama to slaughter McCain but he is too scared of alienating the middle.   Obama seems to want to be a dove in Iraq and a hawk in Afghanistan.  I'd like to see it real simple:  McCain as the hawk and Obama as the dove.  But I think Obama thinks doves can't win.  He may be right, but I resent his compromise on the principles.

I walked out because I realized that apart from a really fierce personal hatred of McCain, who I totally loathe and despise, I had no real interest in who would win the debate or the election.  The country is fundamentally bad, and its leadership (at least of the two main parties) reflects the fundamental badness.

If anyone lost here, it was Obama - - he must have pissed off his original base.  He was way too deferential to McCain and if they're anything like me, they were expecting him to administer McCain a real drubbing.

[Plane]

If anyone lost here, it was Obama - - he must have pissed off his original base.  He was way too deferential to McCain and if they're anything like me, they were expecting him to administer McCain a real drubbing.

You convinced yourself too well tht McCain isn't smart.

I wonder how widespread your point of view is?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Obama needed to harp more on how McCain is tied far too closely to Juniorbush and his disastrous administration.

[BT]

Obama needed to harp more on how McCain is tied far too closely to Juniorbush and his disastrous administration.

He did.

Unfortunately that gave McCain the opportunity to point out how many times he differed with Bush.

And that was when Obama went on the defensive and lost whatever traction he had at the beginning of the debate.

[Michael Tee]

When I think about it more, I see that McCain is a fighter.  He hits with both hands.   Obama fights with one hand tied behind his back.

I found it interesting that Obama largely let McCain get away with the description of the surge as "working."   He did say that the war should never have been started, that it had cost 4,000 American lives and 25,000 to 30,000 wounded, plus a half-trill to date and $10 billion a month now, but it's a reference he only made once, and when McCain returned again and again to "the surge is working," Obama never returned to the cost of the war.

Also very interesting, neither McCain nor Obama referred to the cost of the war in Iraqi lives lost.  They were the true invisible people in the debate. 

Why did young people, college students particularly, love Obama?  I think a big part of the "change" he promised had a moral dimension to it.  The war was wrong NOT because it couldn't succeed, or because it cost too much in lives (but only American lives, natch) and money - - the college kids understood that the war was wrong because it was wrong.  It was immoral.  It was illegal.  These young people were eager to see morality play a role in public affairs.  But at tonight's debate, I looked in vain for one evidence of morality as Obama voiced his objections to the war.  It wasn't there.  From McCain, I expected none (but got the token nods to Iraqi "democracy")   I think Obama should have denounced the war passionately, DESPITE the alleged "success" of the surge, as illegal and immoral.  Should have been much more forceful in alluding to the human cost of it.

[BT]

Remember the blank screen quote.

That was why the kids liked him.

Reminds me of the rock opera Tommy.


Can you see the real me, can you, can you?

[Xavier_Onassis]

 I think Obama should have denounced the war passionately, DESPITE the alleged "success" of the surge, as illegal and immoral.  Should have been much more forceful in alluding to the human cost of it.

Well, yes. But the problem is that this makes it sound like those fighting there are deluded. They are, of course, but sayng the soldiers are deluded is not going to win points with Americans who are used to the idea of morally justified constant war.

If you start to talk about all the dead, the maimed, the blind, the insane of this war, that is a downer. Americans hate downers. They want it to be "morning in America".

Even if it's midnight.

Obama can't risk being seen as an angry Black man. Martin Luther King could show outrage, because he wasn't after a majority of votes. Odds are a majority of the White folks in some Mississippi and Alabama towns would have voted to lynch King.

[Knutey]

>Obama can't risk being seen as an angry Black man. Martin Luther King could show outrage, because he wasn't after a majority of votes. Odds are a majority of the White folks in some Mississippi and Alabama towns would have voted to lynch King.<

And probly still would right along with the rabid white Repub racists in here.

[Michael Tee]

<<But the problem is that this makes it sound like those fighting there are deluded. They are, of course, but sayng the soldiers are deluded is not going to win points with Americans who are used to the idea of morally justified constant war.

<<If you start to talk about all the dead, the maimed, the blind, the insane of this war, that is a downer. Americans hate downers. They want it to be "morning in America".

<<Even if it's midnight.>>

You're saying exactly what I'm saying, that militarism is the curse of American politics.  It creates dead zones, political taboos, truths that can't be told.

But the issue really is leadership, a test which Obama has miserably failed.  John McCain is a leader for the forces of death and destruction; he speaks out forcefully in favour of murder and he mobilizes his forces.  Obama is a leader who (a) tries to copycat his rival (always a disastrous mistake, nobody will buy the fake if the real thing's available at the same price and (b) fails, from a combination of cowardice and inability, to persuade and lead, to say what no one else could say.

Obama is trying to push two mutually contradictory messages at once: the antiwar message and the "magnificent accomplishments of our heroic troops" message.  One undercuts the other.  Maybe it takes more brilliance than Obama can muster to attack the war and at the same time, diffuse or mollify militaristic sentiment, or even better, if possible, attack it head-on as backward, primitive and counter-productive, forcing people to choose between civilized resolutions and macho posturing, and gambling that with fresh, determined and articulate leadership, a substantial majority of the public can be persuaded to reject the war drums and those who constantly beat them.  The failure of Obama to demonstrate such leadership was one of the major disappointments of the evening.

<<Obama can't risk being seen as an angry Black man. Martin Luther King could show outrage, because he wasn't after a majority of votes. Odds are a majority of the White folks in some Mississippi and Alabama towns would have voted to lynch King.>>

Then AND now, as Knutey rightly points out.

[Xavier_Onassis]

This county has been plagued with militarism from the Mexican War onward. The Germans sing "Deutschland über Alles" (Germany above all) and Americans sing "God shed His grace on Thee", and make a huge deal over the mention of God in the pledge of allegiance to the national logo. Neither Germ,ans or Americans consider either stateent to be in any way irrational, though both are certainly logically disputable.

Both of these are irrational beliefs, and cannot be disputed in any logical way. I think most Americans would consider leaving out the "in God we trust" from the Pledge to be at 'sinful' as much as the assassination and roasting on a spit of three bald eagles.