8:05 pm: Obama takes on McCain & Bush
8:06 pm: McCain: "Not feeling great about a few things lately...but I'm feeling better now..." thanks to bipartisanship!!
8:07 pm: McCain avoids the "greatest crisis since WWII" line.. He "Palins" around to "we must end our addiction to foreign oil"! Where did that come from?
8:10 pm: McCain still goes back to WWII with his Eisenhower story. Promises "accountability" in government but declined to answer whether or not he would vote for bail out - won't offer accountability for himself.
8:15 pm: Members of Congress "sitting in jail now" because of earmarks... exactly where McCain will probably end up if he gets 4 years of the kind of unfettered power Bush has had.
8:18 pm: Obama stumbling on laying blame at McCain's feet. He could've done better than that. Also weak on refuting McCain's charge of out of control spending.
8:19 pm: Why keep going back to this "people facing charges" / "in prison" idea? Is he going to propose criminal charges for the Wall Street CEOs who have fleeced America into a new Depression?
8:24 pm: What is Obama's definition of "rich"?
8:33 pm: There we go, Obama. Bring the spending discussion right back to the Republicans. Iraq's $79 billion surplus?!
8:37 pm: Was McCain against Charles Keating's unnecessary spending when it went directly into McCain's pocket?
& There's that Miss Congeniality line again. Did he forget he's already used it? MAVERICK! "& I've got to say that I have a partner who's a good maverick with me now." This is golden. That McCain smile, too.
8:40 pm: McCain takes credit for the surge but shirks responsibility for getting us into Iraq in the first place?
8:41 pm: Bin Laden - there he is. I forgot about that guy.
8:44 pm: Obama putting his own responsibility for foreign policy on Biden. Good move but I can't say I agree with it. Obama is running for president, not Biden. He has to display his own command of the subject and explain the actions McCain brought up.
8:48 pm: Tactics and strategy. McCain is speaking directly to press reports that his "campaign suspension" was a mere tactic. He wants Americans to think that it was part of a larger strategy?
What did Admiral Mullen say?
8:51 pm: Obama emphasizing civilian control of military by deferring to Sec. Gates' recommendations while McCain sticks with the generals. It isn't surprising that McCain sticks with the generals, given his military background, but the fact is that the United States is not a country whose foreign policy is controlled by the military. Our Commander-in-Chief is a civilian for that exact reason. I'm curious to see how the top brass will react to an Obama presidency. How will the policy shifts be enacted in our strategic thinking?
8:56 pm: What's McCain squinting at in the audience? Is he expressing distaste with Obama's "If John disagrees, he can let me know" line? Those two seemed to be action-reaction. No similar reaction to the "if you want to sing songs about bombing Iran" line.
8:59 pm: If he's wearing the bracelet now, has he been wearing it for over a year?
9:00 pm: Obama - "I've got a bracelet, too.... No US soldier ever dies in vain because they're following in the service of their commander-in-chief." He turns it back to judgment, something McCain hasn't been showing much of lately. How can Obama win this debate when McCain returns time and again to the military honor line? I don't think Obama can overcome that among the majority of Americans.
9:05 pm: "The Iranians have a lousy government and therefore they have a lousy economy..." - McCain.
The United States has a lousy economy therefore...?
9:13 pm: "What Senator Obama doesn't understand..." That line has been repeated about 10 times so far by McCain.
A minute earlier, too, I really thought Obama was going go after Palin for calling Kissinger "naive" when Obama started saying he had been called "naive".
9:15 pm: Here goes the McCain temper!! & in defense of Kissinger?
(9:29) Was McCain thinking about Palin when he began to get heated there for a moment?
9:18 pm: McCain pounding Obama for being "naive." It's sort of disrespectful, isn't it, the way he's doing it? The tactic and the tone he's using to discredit Obama?
9:21 pm: "Vladimir Putin: Our President" - Did the Russians sneak across their border and post Putin propaganda?
9:24 pm: One more lede question: Thank the Lord, this is getting boring.
9:31 pm: "Senator Obama still doesn't seem to understand..."
9:34 pm: Is McCain seriously comparing Obama to "this Administration"??? OMG!
4 comments:
speaking of Iraq.....we had one Hussein strung up. Now its time for another one!
Obama could win if he tried more scare tactics. America is like an abused child... always running to the parent who abuses them out of fear... out of this fear we will huddle under McCain's wing and pray we don't get hit anymore.
Im getting on the plane... keep up the good work babe.
While I don't agree with everything either man says, it bothers me that you bash McCain for speaking about past wars, but it is OK for Obama to talk about he past. If we do not remember the past, we are doomed to repeat it. You can't have it both ways. And the reality is that the vast majority of Americans are proud of the red, white, and blue.
To cb:
I'm not bashing McCain for speaking about past wars. What the hurried nature of the live blogging format didn't allow me to convey fully was that I'm criticizing McCain for relying so frequently on the formulation of "greatest crisis since World War II" or "greatest crisis since the Great Depression". Even with the recent Russia-Georgia War, he called it "the greatest foreign policy crisis since the end of the Cold War," forgetting entirely the several crises of American foreign policy in the last eight years alone.
My larger point is that McCain uses historical context to his own ends without giving full historical context or even correct historical context in some cases.
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