Thoughts on the debate

Concerning the debate tonight, which I half-watched, both candidates were in good form, but McCain, at least as seemed to me, particularly helped himself. He was focused, calm, collected, well-spoken, benevolent, fatherly—not the edgy, meandering McCain. He seemed the mature and experienced one. That’s my objective, “pundit” self speaking. I oppose McCain as much as ever. As I do Obama.

Others had a different reaction, they said McCain was mean. They said he didn’t look at Obama, while Obama looked at him. This was more noticeable on the split-screen playbacks later on MSNBC, with McCain refusiing to look in Obama’s direction while Obama was speaking. In other photos I’ve seen today, even when they are greeting each other, Obama is smiling at McCain, while McCain is looking away. Not nice. Not genial. But that’s McCain, he shows contempt for his opponent. He did the same to Romney—and he beat him.

Seeing the discussion on Chris Mathews, whom I normally can’t stand but enjoyed listening to tonight, I realized what an interesting object of analysis the debate was.

I thought Obama looked better tonight than I had ever seen him, he had a golden glow. Sometimes he doesn’t look that good, kind of ashen-faced and purple lipped. His campaign staff ought to find out what kind of lighting was used in that theater tonight and adopt it.

Obama did well for himself in looking sort of presidential, though his problem as always is that he’s too thin and youthful to look really presidential. I don’t know where the conservatives are coming from when they constantly say that Obama is an inarticulate babbler without a teleprompter. This kind of wildly biased untrue statement shows how the conservative movement has decayed into the conservative attack machine, and why so many people, including me, have had it with them.

So Obama did well for himself in seeming together, serious, and presidential. But McCain did well for himself too.

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Peter H. writes:

I’m afraid I have to disagree with you. I think McCain looked harried, nervous, and provided nothing but boilerplate whereas Obama was calm and methodical, dare I say informative and, yes, presidential. I have no dog in this fight (I can’t vote for either of them), but my immediate reaction was that Obama cleaned his clock.

It’s really frustrating to watch Fox, for example, and see people like Hannity, to say nothing of the McCain flacks I’ve seen interviewed, playing up what I thought was a lackluster performance by McCain. At least I have Dick Morris on my side! He, too, thinks Obama won. Now they’re presenting results from a Fox News “poll” on who won the debate. What a surprise … 82 percent McCain.

I’ve always reacted negatively when people say politics is just a game, that the only reason people support a candidate is that he represents their party. Tonight, it’s like “my team, right or wrong” … Packers vs. Vikings, Yankees vs. Red Sox, Coke vs. Pepsi … it’s all the same. Demoralizing.

LA writes:

One particularly silly moment for McCain: in the middle of the discussion about the finance crisis, he trotted out—again—the story of Gen. Eisenhower writing two alternative speeches for D-Day, with the second speech, in the event the invasion failed, announcing his resignation from the Army, all to demonstrate McCain’s point that people should take responsibility for failure and therefore that Christopher Cox should resign as Chairman of the SEC.

Now there are two ways of seeing this. On one hand, I’m glad that McCain made this point because I’m strongly in favor of federal and other public officials resigning because of failure or disagreement with the president over policy, something that used to be common but that never seems to happen in today’s society, where career has become the ruling ethical principle.

On the other hand, is the Normandy invasion really the right example for what the Chairman of the SEC should do? McCain’s constant reliance on military tropes to make his points, even on issues very far removed from the military, is tiresome and inappropriate and shows a mind not engaged with reality.It shows a mind for which the only true frame of reference is the military and military honor, and that is simply not appropriate for a political leader in the United States. After George Washington resigned from the Army, he put away military things. Far from constantly mentioning his 8 1/2 years of military service as Commander of the Continental Army, he rarely spoke of it in public. He recognized and honored the distinction between the military and civilian spheres. The same is true of other former military men who became president, who in fact were following Washington’s example. By contrast McCain constantly uses his military background to pump up his ego and express his superiority over others. His entire self-concept and even his understanding of politics seem to derive from the military. Nothing has meaning to him, unless he can somehow relate it to a military framework. This is not good. It shows a deeply limited and mediocre mind as well as serious ego problems. It is also demagogic, feeding the quasi-fascist, leader- and military-worshipping mentality that is such an obvious and worrying strain among today’s Republicans.

Please note: I am not saying that Republicans are fascists. I am saying that many Republicans today exhibit certain fascist-like qualities. I’ve been saying this for years.

Ray G. writes:

Barry Hussein’s final words last night were on he felt bad that kids around the world no longer look up to “Amair-ree-ka” and no longer wish to “migrate” here. I say Yes! Please stay home!!

Barry’s nothing but a smooth talking social activist with neo-Marxist leanings. Plus his Muslim past and sympathies.

Gary Moe writes:

I didn’t see much of the debate, except the last few minutes.

I did get to hear McCain saying that he would “love our veterans and take care of them,” which made me want to vomit because it’s the same line he uses about illegal aliens: “These are God’s children and we need to take care of them.”

I remarked to my wife that it’s an embarrassment to hear a possible president of the United States talk like this. Maybe these lines have been focus grouped, and are thought to resonate with women voters, but I don’t think one ever heard Ronald Reagan or even Gerald Ford talk like this. Those guys might have spoken about “respect” and “honor” and our veterans being deserving of that, but this whole business of “love and take care of” is to infantilize our brave veterans. Frankly, when taken with his comment about “taking care of God’s children” it suggests to me that this guy is either (a) some kind of megalomaniac (but then, so is Obama) or (b) he simply thinks that there is no difference between our fighting men and women and illegal border-jumpers. Both are of equal value in his mind.

Well, at least I live in a state that is solid for Obama. I can vote for Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin with a clear conscience, knowing that I will not have had a part in sending either of these two clowns to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 27, 2008 02:28 AM | Send