The First Debate
The debate between the two men, one of whom seems likely to lead the United States for the next four years, bordered on interminable. Neither said anything new or even significant, nor did they say nothing in an interesting way. There was no free thinking, no fresh ideas. They were campaigners seeking, if not to hit the proverbial home run, then at least not make a major slip. Both did neither.
In typical sports reporting fashion, the commentators focused on who won or didn’t lose. The PBS commentators seemed to agree that McCain looked better than he had, and Obama looked as presidential as he had to. That underscored the fact that if any viewers on the fence were shifted, those who were concerned that McCain was dangerously senile found nothing to worry them, and those who worried that Obama might not be able to function as commander-in-chief had their concerns allayed.
Still, there were enormous gaps by the pair in telling us what we needed to know. As regards the economy, both failed to speak to the scope of the current crisis and how it would affect their campaign promises. They sounded like a broken record, refusing to answer a basic question: what do they see ahead of us that they didn’t a year ago.
Obama still seems to think that $250,000 is a middle class income. McCain still believes in the trickle down theory.
On foreign policy, McCain believes that the surge was the whole war, a point Obama tried to emphasize. Most Americans are fed up with the Iraq war and most now think we should never have invaded. What Obama might have asked to McCain’s insistence on our winning in Iraq was With more than 4,200 Americans killed, 30,000 wounded, Iran made stronger, Al Qaeda is stronger, and at a cost of $2 trillions, what has been accomplished? What is our victory?
Obama was focused on Afghanistan, and in some ways, that was right. But he thinks that putting a couple of brigades of American troops is going to fix that country, and nothing could be further from the truth. If that war is winnable – a questionable premise – it will take more than another 10,000 American soldiers. Ask the Russians who had over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan; or go watch “Charlie Wilson’s War.”
The two also sparred over Russia and the invasion of Georgia. Obama used the term “unacceptable” which sounded as foolish as when President Bush said it. Of course it was acceptable; Russia invaded and no one did anything about it. Neither mentioned the fact that the U.S. had egged on Georgia and that more than a 1,000 of our own highly-stretched forces were training Georgian troops only weeks before they launched their invasion of South Ossetia.
Ultimately, there was a stark difference between the two men, and it wasn’t about skin color, it was about age. The younger man showed that he was fully informed, both bright and thoughtful, if not quite smooth. The older man looked much older; he was smooth, mostly, but he is not only past his prime, he’s past this game.
It’s been almost two years since Obama told a colleague in New Hampshire at the outset of his campaign that he thought of himself as a place holder. Curiously, he was wrong. He’s the candidate. But McCain, who survived because the field of opponents were less than he, tonight seemed like a place holder.
Had he chosen Mitt Romney as his running mate, McCain’s role on the stage in Mississippi might have made some sense, but not with Sarah Palin standing behind him. With the economic crisis, with the world in crisis, America is looking for someone who is up to the task of leading the free world; not someone who will have to hand the job over to someone else.
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Comments (5)
One of the most frightening things to come out of last night's debates for me was McCain's response to the issue of Pakistan. Criticizing Obama for saying that he would announce military strikes within Pakistan's borders, McCain said, "you don't do that, you don't say that out loud - if you have to do things, you have to do things."
One of the most apparent differences between McCain and Obama for me last night was the fact that Obama seems to get just how important the international community's impression of the US is to our national security. We are not held with great esteem anymore on the world stage and McCain seems to be totally clueless that more unannounced military strikes and war-mongering will only make this worse. In the end, the US will stand alone. To me, he represents more unilateral and dangerous policy.
Posted by Sarah Mac | September 27, 2008 11:23 AM
McCain is a relic of the past versus Obama's clear, principled vision for a better future... Let's hope US citizens around the world turn out in November for a future that with our passion and the right leadership we can create together.
Posted by Kate Daniels | September 27, 2008 11:40 AM
In the debate, John McCain, except for military expenditures, proposed a freeze on government spending. Obama's response was the suggestion that such a freeze was like surgery with a blunt instrument.
The McCain freeze proposal was much more than that. It exposed McCain as a mindless Reagan ideologue committed to starving the government beast. A policy of starvation is the conservative alternative to a sane fiscal policy. Like Bush, McCain appears blind to the principle enunciated by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations:
In the context of the huge existing deficit and U.S. obligations to foreign creditors created by Bush's willful refusal to tax and the anticipated funding a gargantuan Wall Street bailout, McCain's slash-spending-cut-taxes policies are the products of a mind that is oblivious to the growing insolvency of the United States.
During the debate Mc Cain displayed similarly disturbed simplicity by arguing that the Bush' "surge" tactic of increasing the number of American troops in Iraqi alone caused a decisive change the course of war to the exclusion of all others causes. Despite his Annapolis schooling, McCain appears not to know or to have deliberately forgotten George Washington's teaching about causation in war after his successful leadership of the American insurgency against a British occupation during the Revolutionary War. In a recent biography of Washington entitled His Excellency, Joseph J. Ellis reports on Washington's explanation of the American triumph over the British:
In arguing the decisive effect of the surge, in his attack on Obama who opposed it, McCain reveals that he doesn't get the concept of concatenation of causes in war or how the course of the Iraq war has been shaped by of complex and multiple causes.
So the first debate reveals clear cognitive differences between the presidential candidates. McCain's perspective is narrow-focused, simple minded, and disturbingly ideological. Obama's outlook is rational, realistic, and broadly contextual. These differences in perspective point to crucial differences in the quality of their presidential judgment and leadership.
Posted by W B Daniels | September 27, 2008 12:14 PM
What Friday night's debate lacked in concrete fiscal policy discussion, it made up for in character revelation. If in the presence of a fellow American Senator McCain must revert to oft-repeated anecdotes about his adoring constituents, refusal to make eye contact, condescension (opening his rebuttals with no less than four "What my opponent doesn't seem to understand"), mockery, and distorted facts, how can he be expected to preside honorably over a Democratic Congress, or perform diplomatic duties with those "bad guys" he referred to during the debate?
Posted by Aralena Leroy | September 28, 2008 2:09 PM
I too, found the debate to be uninspired and lackluster. As I mention in my blog above, which was motivated by this excellent post, I am particularly troubled by both candidates' pandering to the popular anti-Russian sentiment in the US for political gain, as opposed to the formation of a real working policy.
As a native Arizonan, I cannot declare loudly enough that McCain is a terrible choice for president. I know many people here who believe he's lost his mind; people who say that they would have voted for him in 2000 but see that he is not the same person that he was eight years ago. Even if he was the same person, we do not need a candidate who is still fighting the Vietnam and Cold Wars.
We also should not have a president who is so old. I have had the misfortunate of watching family members' health deteriorate overnight as they approach their mid-seventies, and there is simply no cure for old age. This is not ageism, but a firm belief that as your mental facilities naturally deteriorate, your responsibilities should not increase dramatically. Sadly for McCain, his time to rule the world has passed.
Obama is my candidate because he is articulate, and he recognizes the critical task of improving our relationship with the rest of the world. We have to decide between the two, and the nation cannot bear eight more years that even remotely resemble the Bush administration.
However, my greatest fear is that the US is simply no longer the country that it once was. Listening to the debate, I had the disturbing sense that I was watching an election about to take place in a foreign country, as neither candidate truly tapped into my fears and concerns, nor my hopes and dreams. What is this new America, I wonder.
Posted by MHahn | September 30, 2008 4:10 PM