Carol Platt Liebau: Yet Something Else Barack "Doesn't Understand"
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — Barack Obama tonight: [C]ountries like Russia and China that are, I think Senator McCain would agree, not democracies, but have extensive trade with Iran but potentially have an interest in making sure Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. (emphasis added). From ...

Debate
The Corner on National Review Online — [image] [image] NRO BLOG ROW | THE CORNER | ARCHIVES SEARCH E-MAIL PRINT RSS [image] [image] Saturday, September 27, 2008 [image] Debate [ Kathryn Jean Lopez ] transcript 09/27 12:12 AM [image] [image] [image] © National Review Online 2008. All Rights Reserved. Home | Search | NR / Digital | Donate | Media Kit | Contact Us This page loaded in 0.011248 seconds.

THE FIRST OBAMA-MCCAIN DEBATE: MCCAIN BLEW AN OPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME: HE FAILED TO BLAME THE DEMOCRATS FOR THE FAILURE OF FANNIE MAE
THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS — ... IN FACT: THE WORD "FANNIE" WAS UTTERED ONCE IN THE WHOLE DEBATE, DESPITE THE FACT THAT THIS IS WHAT LIES AT THE VERY HEART OF OUR CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS. ...

Debate Highlights
J. Bradford DeLong's Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles — Wow. McCain sure told a lot of lies. Dishonest and dishonorable: Transcript of presidential debate - CNN.com: OBAMA: Well, thank you very much, Jim, and thanks to the commission and the University of Mississippi, "Ole Miss," for hosting us tonight. I can't think of a more important time for us to talk about the future of the country. You know, we are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is involved in two wars, and we are going through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And although we've heard a lot about ...

Debate Commentary. Sort of
ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES — ... I watched the first presidential debate last night (it's after midnight as I type this), the one McCain almost canceled, the one he was supposed to be strongest in because of his foreign policy expertise. Those were the expectations, then: That McCain would have an easier time with this debate than the following ones but that he had been throwing odd temper tantrums all the preceding week and it wasn't quite clear what that meant for his preparedness. ...

Obama 1 : McCain 0
Shakesville — ... that enormo eagle backdrop? Was preposterous.) I found Obama to be extremely likeable, and McCain to be extremely condescending, neither of which I expected. Not because I've never found Obama likeable (I have) and certainly not because I've never found McCain condescending (I sure have), but just because I didn't anticipate that those particular dynamics would emerge quite so forcefully during this debate. I thought the most emblematic part of the evening was this exchage: MCCAIN: I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference ...

Why Voters Thought Obama Won
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right — ... Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you”. This is a gap that has no doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters. Per the transcript, McCain never once mentioned the phrase “middle class” (Obama did so three times). And Obama’s eye contact was directly with the camera, i.e. the voters at home. McCain seemed to be speaking literally to the people in the room in Mississippi, but figuratively to the ...

Will MSM Take Note of Obama’s Kissinger Gaffe?
GayPatriot — ... When John McCain called Barack Obama on his misrepresentation of what former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said, I thought he might have caught his Democratic rival in the gaffe of the night: ...

Poll: Uncommitted See Obama as Most Like Them
ScrappleFace — (2008-09-27) — In the wake of the first presidential debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, a CBS news poll of uncommitted voters shows that those who can’t make up their minds find more in common with Sen. Obama. “People tend to gravitate toward the candidate who seems most like them,” said an unnamed pollster at CBS. “And we’re starting to see shift, at least a tentative one, among those who have difficulty making decisions. To the uncommitted, Obama looks like a fellow traveler.” ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — ... Obama was careful not to say last night that Kissinger advocated talks on a presidential level (he used the word "we," saying Kissinger believes "we should meet with Iran -- guess what -- without precondition" and "we should have contacts without preconditions"). ...

Were We Greeted as “Liberators”?
Flopping Aces — ... You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong.”-Barry, Presidential debate September 26, 2008, on the campus of the University of Mississippi. ...

Debate Fact Checking: Kissinger
Outside The Beltway | OTB — ... outreach guy, between 8:51 and 11:36 Eastern rounding up “Debate Facts” (which, oddly, were numbered 1-13 and 16) and various pro-McCain or anti-Obama statements from pundits. Presumably, those on Obama’s list got similarly inundated. Nothing much jumped out at me last night during the debates as wildly unfair. The biggest factual contention last night was Obama’s assertion that Henry Kissinger supported him and disagreed with McCain on the issue of talks with Iran. Here’s the exchange from the transcript: OBAMA : Senator McCain mentioned Henry Kissinger, who’s one of his ...

He's Awesome
Eschaton — What I did catch from the radio bits I did hear is that John McCain is awesome. More than that, the American people know he's awesome. ...

The morning after the debate.
Althouse — It's tempting to go back into the live-blog, when it's become the dead-blog, and punch it up with sober observations, quotes from the transcript, and links to the things other bloggers were saying in real time when I was too busy listening and writing to read much of anything (even to proofread myself). ...

McCain "needs to make an opponent an enemy in his mind to kind of get up for this. He personalizes conflict..."
Althouse — ... (Hey, do you know the difference between a tactic and a strategy? "I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy." If you don't, you're not fit to stand on the stage next to John McCain, who's been through tactics and strategies all over the world over half a century.) ...

Debate Post-Mortem
PoliBlog: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts — I started to live blog the debate last night, but frankly was too tired. Still, I watched and some of the cable news reactions. On balance, I thought that it was a tie, although given that it was the vaunted Foreign Policy Debate and McCain is supposed to be the Foreign Policy Guy, I suppose that a tie in this case goes to Obama. In terms of an event that profoundly changes the race, this wasn’t it. I don’t recall any especially problematic answers or mistakes that would make good sound bites of the type that make good commercial fodder or that will be ...

So, how many times did Obama reinforce the brand by mentioning the word "Democrat" in the debate?
Corrente — Here’s the transcript; guess. Ten times? Five? Three? Twice? Once? Zero?

ANOTHER Obama Flip Flop-- Missile Defense Systems (Video)
Gateway Pundit — More Hope and Change... Obama now says he supports missile defense systems. At least, that's what he said last night but who really knows? Obama was firm on his opposition to missile defense earlier this year in an ad. This is an excellent video comparison of the opposing Obama positions: Great job on the video- Cuffy Perfunction. Change You Can Believe In.

Let's compare the candidates' post-debate ads.
Althouse — ... Okay, McCain's ad is way funnier. It's clever, though it's not really fair. If you look at the transcript, you'll see that every time Obama began with an acknowledgment of agreement with McCain -- which shows generosity and willingness to reach across the aisle -- he proceeded to distinguish his opinions from McCain's. For example: ...

Debate Transcript via CNN
The Moderate Voice — Here is the Debate Transcript via CNN, I’ll offer my own opinion later. CNN: Transcript of presidential debate

Obama won
The Moderate Voice — ... Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you”. This is a gap that has no doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters. Per the transcript, McCain never once mentioned the phrase “middle class” (Obama did so three times). And Obama’s eye contact was directly with the camera, i.e. the voters at home. McCain seemed to be speaking literally to the people in the room in Mississippi, but figuratively to the punditry. ...

Mr. Freeze
Political Animal — ... that deserves a closer look. Jim Lehrer noted that the cost of the response to the financial crisis is still undetermined, but it's likely to be enormous. He pressed McCain on how it would affect his presidency. McCain responded , "How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs." Asked if he was really proposing a spending freeze, McCain added, "I think we ought to seriously consider with the exceptions the caring of veterans national defense and several other vital issues." Now, as far as I can tell, a spending freeze has ...

On Iran, Hawk And Hawkier
Crooks and Liars — ... Last night, John McCain and Barack Obama put Iran firmly back in the “Axis of Evil” as far as future US policy is concerned - although at least Obama would talk to the Iranians before bombing them. ...

McCain's anger and fear dominated the debates
culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily — ... And you were wrong. And so my question is... LEHRER: Senator Obama... OBAMA: ... of judgment, of whether or not -- of whether or not -- if the question is who is best-equipped as the next president to make good decisions about how we use our military, how we make sure that we are prepared and ready for the next conflict, then I think we can take a look at our judgment. The whole debate transcript of the debate is at CNN.

Obama wins the first debate
protein wisdom — ... . Who, let’s face it, are undecided at this point for a reason : If you want to assess the “winner” of a campaign debate, the only data that matters is the post-debate polling — not the pronouncements of the pundits. It will be some days before we see what effect the McCain-Obama debate at Ole Miss has on the national polls, but in this first 24 hours following the meeting, we already have several data points to consider. All of them bode poorly for McCain. A ...

Obama "against" the war in Iraq
Left I on the News — I've written about this many times before, but in the debate Friday night, Sen. Obama had a pretty concise statement summarizing his "opposition" to the invasion of Iraq: ...

Schmidt criticizes Obama for refusing to applaud ‘victory’ in Iraq.
Think Progress — ... Yesterday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) chief strategist David Axelrod noted that during Friday’s presidential debate , Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) “never once mentioned the middle class.” In response, McCain’s top adviser Steve Schmidt noted that Obama never said “victory” regarding the “wars this country’s fighting.” Later, host Tom Brokaw noted that Gen. David Petraeus — whom McCain has called “ ...

Republicans Wanted to Regulate Freddie & Fannie, Democrats Didn’t See a Problem
Stones Cry Out — ... In the first Presidential debate, Barack Obama used the line more than once that this credit crisis we’re in stems from policies that “shredded” regulations, and that assumed that regulation is “always bad”.  But that characterization is simply not true, and in the cases of Freddie and Fannie, which are ...

Presidential Nominees Gone Wild (Part I)
culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily — ... 1) Host Jim Lehrer tries to provoke a presidential man love/hate catfight: "talk to each other about it. We've got five minutes. We can negotiate a deal right here..." Wow! That would be the first time ever presidential nominees "sealed the deal" live and on television. ...

The McCain-Palin Gibberish Iran Policy
democracyarsenal.org — ... and is so dangerous that McCain cut an ad scaring the public about Obama's position and consistently opposes it.  But McCain's advisor Henry Kissinger believes we should talk to Iran at the secretary of state level and somehow claims this is in line with McCain's view?  On top of that, McCain's running mate was on TV last week essentially green lighting an Israeli strike on Iran.  I'm really confused but let's walk through this in more detail. At the debate McCain was asked what he would do about Iran.  His response: Now we ...

Former ambassador to Pakistan responds to McCain: Pakistan was not a ‘failed state’ in 1999.
Think Progress — During Friday’s presidential debate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed: I don’t think that Senator Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power. Everybody who was around then, and had been there, and knew about it knew that it was a failed state. Matt Yglesias contacted William Milan, U.S. ambassador to Pakistan at the time of the 1999 coup, who flatly said that McCain was wrong: There are a number of interesting books, including a ...

McCain: Surge for Afghanistan? Not so much, says General in Charge of Afghanistan
Firedoglake — ... John McCain said one substantive thing about Afghanistan in Friday’s debate: we should take Gen. Petraeus’ Iraq strategy and move it a few thousand miles east. Or, as he put it, “Senator Obama calls for more troops, but what he doesn’t understand, it’s got to be a new strategy, the same strategy that he condemned in Iraq. It’s going to have to be employed in Afghanistan.” ...

Top U.S. general in Afghanistan disagrees with McCain: ‘The word I don’t use for Afghanistan is surge.’
Think Progress — ... In last Friday’s presidential debate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that “the same strategy” that Gen. David Petraeus implemented in Iraq is “going to have to be employed in Afghanistan.” But McCain’s claim was undercut yesterday when Gen. David D. McKiernan, the new top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, “stated emphatically that ...

Presidential Nominees Gone Wild - Part 1
Open Left - Front Page — ... 1. Host Jim Lehrer tries to provoke a Presidential Man Love/Hate Cat Fight:  "talk to each other about it. We've got five minutes. We can negotiate a deal right here.... " Wow! That would be the first time ever presidential nominees "sealed the deal" live and on television. ...

One Week After McCain Claims Vets ‘Know I’ll Take Care Of Them,’ IAVA Gives Him A ‘D’
Think Progress — ... During the first presidential debate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repeatedly emphasized his love of veterans — and their fondness for him in return. “I’ll take care of them. And they know I’ll take care of them,” he said. McCain frequently exaggerates his level of support for and from veterans groups, claiming to have “ ...

Memo from CFR to McCain: Ahmadinejad Does Not Run Iran
democracyarsenal.org — ... But even if it's just top 50, it would seem to put a damper on John McCain and Sarah Palin's attempts to continue to make talking to Iran all about Ahamadinejad.  McCain showed his confusion on this issue in the spring when confronted by Joe Klein.  But McCain and Palin continue to demagogue on Ahamadinejad and all the scary things he says as an excuse to not deal with Iran. Here is McCain at the first debate making the case for not dealing with Iran: Here is Ahmadinenene [mispronunciation], Ahmadinejad, who is, Ahmadinejad, who is now ...

McCain's Flip-flop on Iran, and a Powerful New Plan for a Grand Bargain
TPMCafe — ... of engagement. So Senator McCain flip-flopped and changed his tune (while of course claiming consistency). Here is what McCain said in the first debate: "He [Kissinger] said that there could be secretary-level and lower level meetings. I've always encouraged them." Having lost on the substantive policy question of yes or no to engagement, McCain tried to make this all about a personal Presidential-level meeting with Ahmadinejad by misrepresenting Obama's position as inexperienced and naïve. The McCain line sounds like exactly what it is, clutching at straws. ...

Obama, The Constitutional Scholar?Hardly.
GayPatriot — ... Well, something has been bothering me about the first Obama-McCain debate.  That is Obama’s complete lack of understanding about the Consitution when it comes to the budget-making process.   Here is the transcript of the debate that I’m referring to: ...

Taking on McCain on veterans' issues
Political Animal — TAKING ON MCCAIN ON VETERANS' ISSUES.... In the first presidential debate a couple of weeks ago, John McCain boasted that he's always been a champion for veterans. I'll take care of them," he said . "And they know I'll take care of them." Unfortunately for McCain, facts keep getting in the way of the claim. In recent years, McCain's ratings from veterans' groups have been ...

Patrick Barry: John McCain's Blundering Week On Foreign Policy
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... of State George Shultz, argued: "This drift toward confrontation must be ended. However appropriate as a temporary device for showing our concern, isolating Russia is not a sustainable long-range policy. It is neither feasible nor desirable to isolate a country adjoining Europe, Asia and the Middle East and possessing a stockpile of nuclear weapons comparable to that of the United States." [John McCain, 8/12/08. John McCain, 8/14/08. Sarah Palin, 9/11/08. John McCain, 9/26/08. John McCain, 10/07/08. Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, 10/08/08] ...

Barack Obama's Innovative War On Poverty
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — ... Indeed, as economic observers fret that the ripple effects of the market meltdown could result in greater numbers of underemployed and unemployed, the focus of the campaign remains firmly on businesses and the middle class. During the first debate, when the financial crisis was first coming into focus, "poverty" went similarly unmentioned. ...

Barack Obama's Innovative War On Poverty
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... Indeed, as economic observers fret that the ripple effects of the market meltdown could result in greater numbers of underemployed and unemployed, the focus of the campaign remains firmly on businesses and the middle class. During the first debate, when the financial crisis was first coming into focus, "poverty" went similarly unmentioned. ...

John McCain: The Devil You Know
Patterico's Pontifications — ... McCain already made a similar comparison on spending in the first debate.  But he ought to add that when Obama was asked in that debate where he would cut spending, he not only dodged the question, but also answered by listing at least five major spending increases on energy, healthcare, technology, education and infrastructure.  Here again, McCain can argue that he has a record of trying to restrain wasteful federal spending, while Obama does not. ...

Deficit Spending
Obsidian Wings — ... To which the obvious answer is: putting my plan to buy a new car on hold is one thing. But saving money by not going through chemo and radiation is insane. This is exactly the same. And when debate moderators ask questions like this: ...

Deficit Spending
Political Animal — ... diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer, and to whom people are willing to lend money: look, you've just spent a whole lot of money on the operation to remove your tumor; you just can't afford the chemo and radiation that your doctors recommend. Time to tighten your belt! Time to retrench! To which the obvious answer is: putting my plan to buy a new car on hold is one thing. But saving money by not going through chemo and radiation is insane. This is exactly the same. And when debate moderators ask questions like this: "What are you going to have to give up, in terms of ...

The Rabbi, the Terrorist, and New Jersey's Own Version of Michele Bachman
TPMCafe — ... TV ad depicts the blind Rabbi (yes Dennis Shulman is also blind) embracing the very worst trio imaginable: terrorists, immigrants, and taxes. This is wrong on so many levels; it's hard, as with Bachmann, to know where to begin. Of course, not only does Barack Obama support diplomacy with Iran, but so does the Pentagon leadership, President Bush sent his number three diplomat, Undersecretary of State William Burns, to Geneva for P5+1 talks with Iran, and even John McCain in the first debate said, in referring to secretary-level and lower level meetings with Iran, that "I've ...

McCain For Stopping Defense Waste Before He Was Against It
Open Left - Front Page — ... on Thursday that slashing spending will force the U.S. out of Iraq as well as make the Pentagon have to pick and choose its weapons. "We don't need all these fancy new weapons. I think there needs to be additional review," he said. There's just one problem - McCain has used the 2008 presidential debates to repeatedly cite his commitment to slashing wasteful defense spending as proof he's a fiscal conservative. Here's John McCain at the first presidential debate on 9/26/08: "I think that we have to return -- particularly in defense spending, ...

Bush vs. Obama on Pakistan
democracyarsenal.org — ... in Pakistan "before we declare that we're going to bomb the daylights out of them," said McCain. A month ago, in their first debate, McCain again condemned Obama's position, arguing that the next president should "work with the Pakistani government," not "attack them." ...

CBS: Obama's Numbers Don't Add Up
Wizbang — ... - thanks to the recession. He gave us a very compelling vision with his ad buy tonight. What he did not give us was any hint of the cold reality he's facing or a sense of how he might prioritize his promises if voters trust him with the White House. Remember back in the first debate when Jim Lehrer asked both candidates what they would be willing to cut in order to save money due to the bailout? Not only did Obama say he wouldn't cut anything, but he also went so far as to say that he wanted to fund more programs . So where's Obama going to get the rest of the money he will ...

Republicans heart Irish tax rates
Political Animal — ... : "You know, we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. Microsoft, which is a great American company, has zero exports from the United States. They have a lot of exports from Ireland, because, guess what, Ireland has a 12.5 percent corporate tax rate; we have a 35 percent corporate tax rate." Are we back to this again? John McCain relied on this talking point quite a bit last year. In the first presidential debate, the Republican nominee said : "Right now, the United States of American business pays the second-highest business taxes in the ...

Obama's Deficit Reduction Target Eclipses Bush's Biggest Budget Gap
Politics Daily — ... As a candidate, Sen. Obama was asked what if anything he would cut from the federal budget to help get the deficit under control. He was unable to provide an answer. Now, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating this year's deficit at $1.2 trillion before the first dollar of the economic stimulus bill is spent, President Obama will have to come up with an answer quickly. Officials at the White House say that the president will seek to trim the shortfall by allowing the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 expire at the end of 2010, and by cutting back spending on the war in ...

Obama's Budget Cuts a 'Drop in the Bucket'
Politics Daily — ... President Obama said that he has to rebuild trust with the American people on government spending, and his cuts are meant as a step in that direction. But in proposing such small restrictions in relation to the size of the overall budget and budget deficit, the president may actually have created more skeptics of his plans to rein in government spending. During the campaign, Obama was hard-pressed to come up with any items in the federal budget he would cut as president. Unless he follows through now, and presents deeper cuts to the budget in the not-too-distant future, it will ...

Why Peter Orszag Reminds Me of John McCain
The Atlantic Politics Channel — ... But more than anything else, what all this talk about changing the tone and sending the right signals reminds me of is John McCain. Specifically, this talk of sending a $17 billion dollar signal reminds me of this exchange -- about earmarks -- from the first presidential debate: ...

The Guns of August
Commondreams.org Views — ... that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats. In last year's campaign ...

The Obama Doctrine
Mudville Gazette — ... the Taliban, so we've got to get the job done [in Afghanistan], and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there. It means that we have enough civilian support, agricultural specialists, people who are engineers, people who are building schools and so forth to help the Afghani government do a better job of delivering on behalf of its people." - Senator Barack Obama, August, 2007 The world has spun a couple of ...

Obama Preparing to Use “Hatchet” on Federal Spending?
GayPatriot — ... Should Obama succeed in implementing such a freeze, I do hope he’ll apologize to his 2008 opponent for dismissing his plan to do just that.  When John McCain brought up the topic in the first debate last September, Obama quickly shot it down, “The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.“ ...