So far, no big gaffes, no big zingers, and it’s about even.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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its even because its hard to beat up on an old man, without looking like a tyrant. I do say McCain looks like old, Uncle after having a few beers. You let them rant out respect for their age.
Unless the media decides to rave about Obama this debate will stabilize McCain’s poll numbers.
Let’s hope the media is still pissed at McCain.
They have to trot out their defensive and clueless barbie next week…
are they ever going to show the whole Katie Couric interview with her?
I wish I could get tickets for that debate. But everybody I ask just laughs. It’s the hottest ticket in town.
I bet. That will probably be the highlight of this endless campaign season. How long has it been now, 15 months?
Why are they letting McCain get away with filibustering on his “quick rebuttals?”
They can’t shut him up. I hope Obama ‘s ready for that next time.
The Stupid is Everywhere.
This may be Obama’s best debate of the last two years. But since McCain didn’t fall flat on his face …
Thank gawd its over.
so … the real question is what narrative the media will create.
I don’t have cable so let me know what the narrative is.
I think it’s going to be a tie.
First polls lean heavily to Obama.
Low info voters are likely eating up this Senator Obama doesn’t understand shit. If they are watching.
That young whippersnapper Obama should just get off McCain’s lawn…
What? No Keating Five?
Did it annoy people that Obama kept on telling McCain he was right so many times? Do you think that helped him?
using it in an ad:
Obama has to knock off the deferential Junior Senator bull. This isn’t about who is the senior member of the club, its about who can reach out to American citizens with clarity, forthrightness and blunt honesty.
He could have said this a bit less.
It annoyed Democrats, but so what?
it annoyed me and i’m not a democrat. tired of hearing him being so agreeable, it’s like obama wants everyone to like him too much.
and it’s ‘Not Presidential’. like a commentor said in another thread of another blog, obama needs more fire in his belly. agreed.
The problem is that a certain segment will always be afraid of an aggressive black man.
I don’t disagree with Obama’s rope-a-dope strategy, but a few more counterjabs would have helped.
I think he won the debate. I just wanted a knockout.
Yes. It would have been better to say, “We agree on this.” Or, “John’s right as far as he goes, but…”
CBS is showing the independents with their joy sticks. Biggest surge was when Obama did the “you were wrong” series.
Most thought Obama won. Interesting.
I listened to the debate on NPR. Some commenters there were calling it a tie, but said that since the onus was on Obama to prove himself on Foreign Policy, he benefitted more from the debate.
Katie called Kissinger to clarify his position and he does support dialogue without pre-conditions although not necessarily with the president.
According to the folks at msmbc, mostly they are giving to McCain, till Robertson right now who is leaning towards O.
Yes I agree with others that O said he is right too many times.
After this one I don’t think I can watch again. I think McCain was rude to O, never looked at him once, just snickered and sneered.
McCain was sooo condescending and patronizing. Does that play well? Also – he just droned on and on about the surge – so tedious! Don’t know if this is going to win much in votes for O.
Biden is on NBC being a surrogate. “John’s judgement has been dead wrong on Iraq.” “John’s wrong – the surge was a tactic.” “John has no notion what to do now that the surge is over.” “John is stuck in a place where no one else is.”
Good job.
Wonder if Palin will be on for McCain.:)
nope. She was offered a place and the campaign declined. Instead they sent Giuliani.
What’s with Giuliani’s eyes? Does he always open them that wide? Or just when he lies?
F A C E L I F T !!!!
heh
she is in philly tonite getting drunk at the irish pub
black people in this city dont even know where that place is
Biden makes the rounds and the repugs may as well have a cardboard cutout as a VP candidate. That is called winning the spin.
Obama was excellent and presidential. McCain was pissed off and jumpy. McCain has no plan for Iraq. Surge forever? I think we expected Obama to knock this guy completely out. Obama won the debate and McCain won the battle of expectations. Obama pointing out McCain’s singing about bombing Iran was beautiful.
Don’t worry about Keating five Obama will use that later. I think McCain has a problem with African Americans and got the feeling he could not look Obama in the eye because he is a closet racist. No proof but just a hunch. Obama makes him uncomfortable just by being there. Feeling that discomfort was irritating McCain who considers himself God’s gift to the universe.
Great debate by Obama with some missed opportunities or he is saving things for next time.
My score is Obama 4, McSame 2, 2 ties, Obama Wins, but not by much.
McSame came off as a mean, dismissive asshole. Obama came off as a debate nerd.
Obama’s “you were wrong” attack was solid, but McSame did hit back pretty hard, and Obama’s agreements really hurt him.
Obama’s camp is spinning the agreements as not being stubborn/kneejerk like Bush.
i see mike murphy is back since his boo boo at the convention…..but has anyone seen peggy noonan?
i think they sent her to guantanamo
George Will – in baseball the tie goes to the runner, in a debate the tie goes to the tie where there is more doubt. Mild leg up to Obama. Little Tommy Friedman agrees.
It is beyond me why anyone listens to these two but they do, so I guess that is good.
McCain had a couple of “truthful moments”, perhaps unintentional: Pakistan is a failed state, and the US should stop torturing. That improves my opinion of McCain.
Supposing I were I an independent voter, Obama gave me no reason to vote for him tonight.
War criminals sometimes have deathbed confessions.
Why do demo presidential candidates always come off so passive? They seem to think they are in a college debate. (Yes, they. Obama’s joined the pantheon of wimps like Gore and Kerry.) They are clueless. They let their opponents attack them and they say nothing. They come off so weak. Some day in the sweet by-and -by I’d love to see a demo with enough balls to go on the attack. (Especially when there is so much ammunition.)
Obama isn’t doing enough to distinguish himself from The Man. In this election, McCain is The Man. If voters can’t see enough of a difference between a relatively young black and The Man — which Obama has gone out of his way to keep them from seeing — they will go for The Man.
It looks like Dems will keep Congress, and the Rethugs will keep the White House. I wonder if the Dems will start thinking of acting like an opposition party again, or if they’ll just continue behaving like lapdogs?
On the other hand, polls are saying that Obama won handily, according to MSNBC. I hope that’s right and I’m wrong.
you’re concern trolling lately, Alexander.
We’ll see. What I saw tonight was the same fine-tuning changes that are required with respect to the Republican incumbent. That doesn’t seem like a good idea when you consider the rage that exists against Bush. You can see where this approach got Gore and Kerry.
You can call that trolling if you want. But remember that Gore only won the 2000 election because he veered to the left in the last couple of weeks of the election, which is what I want Obama to do.
Why do you want him to veer to the left? For a mandate?
Because if you think veering to the left is going to win him more votes, you’re probably wrong…except in a few clearly defined areas. Obama is winning. He won the debate. If he wins, he will win with huge congressional majorities and it is not that necessary for him to define a mandate. He’s already calling for a fairly broad mandate.
I want him to veer to the left because of a gut feeling I have. Also because I think his doing so would make him come across as more authentic.
But I’m willing to concede the points you make about his winning to you, since you follow politics much more closely than I do.
In any case, I think progressive blogs should always be calling for the Democratic Party to move more to the left. After all, that is how regressive blogs and news outlets have functioned — by demanding that their party remain true to their cause — and they have been successful politically. They failed in 2006, but our party has not delivered since 2006 in such a way for us to be complacent about winning in 2008.
Personally, I am so sick of certain left-wing blogs asking Barack Obama to adopt their frames. If Obama had, at any point, listened to Matt Stoller, he would have lost immediately.
I didn’t follow what Matt Stoller was saying, but I accepted your point that if Obama openly expressed progressive positions, he would immediately become toast.
After Palin’s implosion and McCain’s posturing about “suspending” his campaign, I have become optimistic about Obama winning again. I don’t think this debate changes much.
All I can say at this point is that if Obama is elected president, I hope he will not follow the example of Clinton, and will not give the Republicans the time of day, despite what he’s said about being “bipartisan”. Look where that got Clinton.
It’s not a matter of veering to the left. It’s a matter of effective campaigning. McCain personally attacked Obama at the very end of the debate and repeated his charges of Obama being too inexperienced. Instead of challenging McCain and pointing out McCain’s egregious ineptness at foreign affairs (ex. the Shia/Sunni mix-up), Obama didn’t answer the charges and rambled on some weird riff on his father and Kenya. Not counter-attacking leant credence to viewers that McCain had a valid point Obama was unable to answer. Obama hasn’t got a clue what a campaign debate is about. It’s about image not some abstract policy prattle that the American electorate couldn’t care less about. You got to connect emotionally with the public or get ready to join Gore and Kerry in the ash bin of campaign history.
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This will reverberate in tomorrow’s headlines. McCain did not manage to win the foreign policy debate. Obama got a slight edge on confidence to handle Iraq and a major advantage on economic policy and the debate itself.
CNN debate highlights
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."“Obama got a slight edge on confidence to handle Iraq“
Not according to this: 49% of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. 55% think McCain would.
Of course, NEITHER of them will make the right decisions about Iraq unless they change their ideas completely, but that’s reality, this is an election, and one has little to do with the other.
well, what would you really like to see America do in Iraq? I assume you would like two things.
If that is your goal, I think Obama is a much better bet than McCain.
I insist on the same things that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis who have lived through this invasion and occupation have wanted and demanded from the beginning. I insist on the following:
As for your item #2, Iraqis are very capable of working things out with each other as they have done very well for many, many centuries. The United States has caused and exacerbated the internal conflict, and their “solutions” – encouraging and assisting ethnic cleansing, building walls, and dividing Iraqis one from the other, are not solutions at all. The one who has caused a problem and consistently done things to make them worse and worse and worse is not the one to solve it.
Get out, just get out, and leave Iraq to Iraqis. It is simply not your business, and you do not know how to deal with it.
well, we both know that you will not get what you want.
But you might get a decent facsimile of what you want. Reparations? Nah gunna happen.
Before I take you seriously, though, I want to hear your vision for a truly representative government there.
BooMan, as long as there are American troops and American mercenaries in Iraq, that is not a reasonable facsimile. It isn’t a facsimile at all.
And what you are telling me is that Obama will continue the denial to Iraq of its rights as a sovereign state, and he will continue the denial of self determination to Iraq as a nation, and Iraqis as a people. And that seems to be OK with you? Well, it is not OK with me, and more importantly it is not OK with the overwhelming majority of Iraqis whose primary country of residence is Iraq. Liberation my Aunt Fatima! Democracy my Aunt Fatima! This is imperialism, and you seem quite OK with it.
I don’t even know what you mean by a “truly representative government”. Is the United States government “truly representative”, and if so, how is it so? And what makes you believe that your concept of a “truly representative government” – whatever that actually means – is what Iraq must have?
Look, for starters, I don’t have very much more right than you and your politicians do to decide what kind of government Iraqis should have, and you have exactly zero right. The only ones who have that right are the Iraqis whose primary country of residence is Iraq.
Secondly, you are throwing out a red herring with your demand that in order to be “taken seriously” I must come up with a design for Iraq that satisfies your very American, very western concept of the “right kind” of government. The issue I am attempting to address, is precisely that Obama’s intention to continue to impose the United States’ imperial presence on unwilling Iraqis is unacceptable to me and more importantly to the Iraqis who will have to continue to live, however unwillingly, under American military, political, and economic dominance. The kind of government Iraq should have is quite a separate topic from that, and is, as I have said, none of your business and none of your government’s business, and very little of my business until and unless I decide to return and make Iraq my primary country of residence again.
Thirdly, since you seem so fixated on the concept of “truly representative government” – whatever that actually means – let us make it clear what it is not. It is NOT a government based purely on some system of racial and religious quotas as the United States has tried to impose on Iraq from the beginning. And it is most certainly not a government consisting, as it does now, of the most radical, extreme, and divisive Iraqi outsider (aka “exile”) groups and individuals – groups and individuals who spent decades in safety and often very luxurious comfort outside the country waiting and scheming for some power to bring them back and put them into power over the Iraqis who had stayed there, many of whom took terrible risks and made huge sacrifices resisting the regime.
BooMan, I am not going to follow your red herring. What I know is that only Iraqis can resolve their issues, and they cannot begin to resolve them as long as the United States is there stirring things up. I also know that how their country is organized and governed is up to the Iraqis for whom Iraq is their primary country of residence. It is not up to me until and unless I return there and make a commitment to live there, and it sure as hell is not up to to you or any other American, or the American government.
Just get out, stop interfering, and leave Iraq to Iraqis.
Hurria’s comments on Iraq are the best I have ever read. His position is clear and very cogently argued. I agree. The United States should just get the hell out of this unfortunate nation and practice what it preaches about democratic rights; that is, let the Iraqi citizenry determine its own fate.
I think our support for the “exiles” who took their comfort in England and other places during the Hussein years is a downright travesty and will forever be a blot on the honor of the United States of America. Get out now and let the Iraqi people deal with the likes of Chalabi and his ilk. I am sure their tenure will be quite limited.
As to reparations, yes they should be paid, but given the current status of American finances, restitution may be a long time in coming. Maybe, we could give up some of our 700 military bases or scrap some of those multi billion dollar armament programs. If we took off some military poundage, we might find ourselves more fit and secure in our quest for peace.
While we are at it, we should recognize that Russia legitimately considers NATO’s expansion to the East as a direct threat to its safety and well being. Given that Russia lost twenty-seven million people killed in World War II, I can understand why they are outraged by the creeping maneuvers of this western alliance system, one of whose members (Germany) launched the bloodiest war in the history of Russia in 1941. Indeed, in the history of the world. Of course, the administrations of Germany now and Germany then are vastly different but I can understand why Russians are still nervous when they realize that one of the fingers on the NATO trigger is still German.
Wake up America, wake up. We have arrived at another turning point in history. Mistakes now might doom us forever.
PS Obama has no intention of ending the occupation, and never did. As I have pointed out again and again and again, Obama spelled out his plan for Iraq very early in the primary process, and his plan is not to end the occupation, but to reconfigure it. His plan would necessitate keeping a so-called “residual force” consisting of about 1/3-1/2 the number of forces at the height of The Surge(TM), and contrary to his sound bytes about withdrawing all combat forces, his “residual force” would include a significant number of combat troops since the “missions” he described included combat. He has also said he would keep combat forces “over the horizon” ready to reenter Iraq on short notice.
Oh, yes – and Obama will keep a large contingent of mercenaries in Iraq.
That is occupation by another name.
And finally, Obama would keep the Command and Control Center fully staffed and functional. In other words, he would continue that aspect of the imperial project in Iraq.
Hillary’s plan was virtually identical.
That is not all that much better than McCain. It certainly carries out the neocon plan for a permanent military presence in Iraq, and by keeping the Command and Control Center, Obama would carry out the neocon plan for permanent political and economic control. That is unacceptable.
I think you are going to have to accept that Iraq will remain a buffer against Iran for the time being.
Iraq will become a huge (maybe the biggest) customer for U.S. military equipment and training.
From that standpoint, it won’t matter who is elected.
I want to know who you think would rule Iraq if there was a free and fair election.
Let’s be very clear about something BooMan. I do not have to accept anything, nor will I. If something is wrong I will never accept it, and not you nor anyone else will dictate to me what I accept and do not accept.
Perhaps you do not mean to, but you are sounding very patronizing here. I will defer to your greater understanding of matters to do with the intricacies of American domestic politics, but not about Iraq or the Middle East, or the Muslim world, and I most certainly will not allow you to dictate to me what I must accept.
PS With Iraq in the kind of social, political, and economic turmoil the United States as set it into, it is impossible to even imagine free and fair elections there. There certainly can never be free and fair elections in Iraq until the occupation and other forms of United States domination have ended, and enough time has passed to allow a return to some degree of equilibrium. The United States has done so much catastrophic damage since 2001, and particularly in the last six years that it is impossible to know for certain what that equilibrium will look like.
So, ask me again a few years after the United States has abandoned its imperial project in Iraq – provided we are both still in life at that time.
“…Iraq…a buffer against Iran…“
This, of course, demands that one ask what the need is for a buffer against Iran. Against what precisely? What actual threat does Iran pose that requires a buffer? The answer is, of course, that Iran poses exactly the same threat that Iraq did – none. Except, of course, that unlike Iraq, Iran has no history of aggression against other countries going back 250-300 years.
The supposed need for a “buffer against Iran” is, just as was the supposed need to invade and occupy Iraq, manufactured out of whole cloth to conceal the real reason. The Iranian threat is nonexistent, and is nothing but a cover for yet another act of naked imperial aggression.
And while we are on the subject, I invite everyone to read and reread, and commit to memory this excellently realistic piece on Ahmadinajad from Juan Cole. And I strongly recommend that you watch the Larry King interview to which Juan refers in the piece. And pass Juan’s piece on to as many people as you can.
One might point out that Iran was a “buffer” against Iraq, or vice versa, back in the 80s when the U.S. supplied military aid to both countries on the downlow.
The bottom line here is the oil. Blood in the gasoline, folks.
Completely and totally unacceptable and in gross violation of the purpose and meaning of the Charter of the United Nations to say nothing of the values of freedom loving peoples everywhere.
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MediaCurves – 2008 Debate Results
and a great response from independents.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Wonderfully informative. Many, many thanks, Oui.
My biggest complaint was that Obama was way too agreeable. I also found that certain things could not be broached. The whole rationale for us being in Iraq was never confronted. If Obama could have said, “This war was waged by Bush and Cheney for their Big Oil cronies, and look at what it did to oil prices,” all of McCain’s talk about surge this and strategy that would be out the window. But in American politics you’re not allowed to discuss that.
Likewise, the discussion over Georgia was constrained by the false story that it was all Russia’s aggression. The situation was created by the U.S. building up Georgia’s military and then giving it a wink to go in and recapture the secessionist provinces which precipitated Russia’s reaction.
This debate lets us know the limits that our national security state has set on any future Obama administration.
Good points, but did the confines of the 2000 debates restrain Bush in any way? No.
Both candidates missed the boat on Georgia. Russia responded to Georgia’s aggression in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. I feel the present American attitude toward Russia will precipitate a war in the Black Sea. There are several flash points: Georgia, Ukraine and the big Russian naval base at Sebastopol now leased from Ukraine.
Russian generals have said twice this summer that US anti-missiles will not be allowed to become operational in Poland. They will be taken out with nuclear weapons if necessary. Why the fuck was this threaten us more directly that the current economic crisis in Wall Street.
Incidentally, a Russian fleet headed up by a battleship is due to visit the Caribbean Sea before the year is out. Russian IL60’s are in Venezuela and, apparently, Cuban naval bases may be opened for Russian use once again. Cold War 2 has begun and the world drifts once again towards nuclear conflagration. I would think this might be worthy of mention in a presidential debate devoted to foreign affairs.
No one in the government wants to admit that Georgia provoked Russia by invading Ossetia and killing hundreds of Russian citizens there.
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ORENBURG (South Urals), September 26 (RIA Novosti) – President Dmitry Medvedev said on Russia must upgrade its nuclear deterrent and fully supply the Armed Forces with modern weaponry by 2020.
He said Russia would make the modernization of its nuclear deterrent and Armed Forces a priority in light of the recent military conflict with Georgia. Moscow launched a five-day military operation “to force Georgia to peace” in response to an attack by Georgian forces on South Ossetia on August 8.
“A guaranteed nuclear deterrent system for various military and political circumstances must be provided by 2020,” Medvedev told a meeting with commanders of military districts during the Center-2008 military exercises at the Donguz testing range in the Orenburg Region.
“We must ensure air superiority, precision strikes at land and sea targets, timely deployment of troops. We are planning to launch large-scale production of warships, primarily, nuclear submarines with cruise missiles and multi-purpose attack submarines,” Medvedev said.
“We will also build an air and space defense network,” he added.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The debate was about winning over the undecideds, not satisfying the faithful, and so Obama took the least line of resistance in many instances. But he won on McCain’s home turf which is as much as he could possibly have done – without seeming arrogant, conceited or too intellectual. He didn’t give the Repugs anything to fire their base with and yet looked collaborative and Presidential to the independents. Having Biden do the spin spot was masterful – who want’s to hear what some paid staffer has been told to say.
It’s very hard to see a way back for McCain from here. He’s had a dreadful weak, lost on his home ground, and now we have the Palin debate, and the economy centre stage for the rest of the campaign.