Although all indications are that the vast majority of Americans thought Barak Obama "won" last night's conversation, the howling of the media this morning seems to be about the whining comment McCain made: "I am not George Bush." Is this an effort to allow McCain to leave with some small measure of undeserved dignity?
In the interest of that old "fair and balanced" shell game I guess they have to show that he didn't come across as an incoherent, double-talking, sneering and condescending Bush clone. He did however, and in contrast with polls of professional pundits who listen to and repeat what other professional pundits repeat, the public seems to agree. CNN's unscientific poll shows that about 80% of respondents did not think McCain won, but the "scientific" polls seem restricted to those still, after all this time undecided and not to the voters in general. I can't help thinking there's something a bit wrong with someone unable to make up their mind after almost two years.
So far this morning, all I'm reading are rubber stamp repeats of the "I am not George Bush" line and nothing of the embarrassing (for McCain) reiteration of "he's going to fine you" after it was explained that he would not and the nauseating repetition of the "there's more we need to know about your relationship with ayers" red herring after that stinker was put thoroughly in its grave. There are no more unanswered questions John, no matter how often you ask the same damn thing. No, Obama didn't say that, but I wish he had.
McCain repeated his rehearsed points over and over and it was often obvious that he wasn't really listening to the answers and that he had no idea what the public's view of his and Palin's mean, vicious accusations might be.
My biggest disappointments of the evening were that McCain seemed too often to have the last, and often dishonest word; that Obama did not point out the continuing "trickle down" nature of McCain's proposals that are so much like the Bush standard, that Obama did not bring up William Timmons and tell us "we need to know more." I wish Obama would have asked him why he kept repeating that chestnut about fines when it was patently a false claim. I wish a lot of things, actually. I wish sanity and honesty weren't so rare in this country, but all in all, I saw McCain as the defendant here, a defendant trying to talk his way around the evidence by postulating unlikely explanations of how his fingerprints were all over the crime scene.
Cross posted from Human Voices
Capt. Fogg, yes, McCain was pretty much "off" all night. I didn't worry about his getting the last word in, though I agree that a few times perhaps Obama might have whupped him but good. But at this point, I think Barack knows most of the audience is filling in the blanks for him. Some of McCain's comments were so patently false and silly that all Obama needed to do was smile--they were based on tried-and-found-ineffective charges from JMac and Palin's ad campaigns, so repeating them only damaged the repeater. The Ayers stuff was transparently stupid -- to be honest, I think Obama's connection to Rev. Wright would have been more effective: it's a fair point that Obama had to have known Wright was a 1960's-70's style firebrand, and that he only jettisoned the guy when associating with him became politically toxic during the primary campaign. Doesn't bother me and I don't really buy the caricature of Wright as "anti-American," but no doubt some of the few remaining "undecided folk" would.
ReplyDeleteObama is undoubtedly a better man than I am for not launching into the tirade I would have launched into.
ReplyDeleteI'm fine at the helm of a boat, but I'm hardly suitable for the ship of state.
The Reverend Wright subject has been neutered by Pastor Muthee - nobody wants to defend the Nigerian witch hunter, but it is something else I would love to see tried.