Xblog

• The pundits did get one thing right: Obama clearly had the better footing on the economic discussion while McCain clearly had the better footing on the foreign policy discussion.
• I use the term “foreign policy discussion” loosely, because it was mostly about confronting our enemies. Partly this was a function of the abbreviated nature of said portion of the debate (due to the economic elephant in the room), but frankly I think it is a sign of just how f’d up things have become. When what you think about first is your enemies, you’re in “circle the wagons” mode, and this is not the kind of outlook that promotes progress or the better world we all want (please tell me we all want it). When all you see is your enemies, it’s hard for your friends to work with you.
• For all the talk about oil and energy independence and the economy, McCain failed to bring up free trade. It just so happens that the two biggest oil suppliers to the US are not enemies, but rather NAFTA trading partners. NAFTA actually provides certain guarantees about access to their oil, and Obama has talked about trying to renegotiate NAFTA. This is a dangerous line of thinking, particularly given how much both of those countries would like to renegotiate NAFTA to improve the terms for themselves. I’d have thought McCain would have jumped all over that. Maybe he’s saving this for the real economics debate.
• Obama made some dangerous word choices. When he was talking about the economy, he started using “I” a lot, as opposed to “my plan” or “we”. This does make him seem more forceful and aggressive, which he needs to do, but he said something sure to cause a shiver down the spine of conservatives and independents: I pay for every dime of it.. I’m outright shocked that McCain didn’t immediately interrupt him and say, “No! The tax payers would pay for every dime of it.” and then grin that scary smile of his so wide that the top of his head threatened to fall off.
• Obama had one weakness on the economy discussion: his response on the ear marks. He had an excellent point about McCain’s targeted tax cuts being the moral equivalent of ear marks, and much worse due to their largesse. I’m sure people caught the difference in the numbers, but I think he didn’t make the case well enough for how they are equivalent to ear marks. Obama needs a better story on this in general. His candidacy is all about foresight, principles, doing things a different way, and going after ear marks for a while and canceling them later is… weak.
• I was just tremendously disappointed with Obama when it came to the foreign policy debate, mostly because I know he’d been preparing for this for a while, and because this was the only night to debate the issue. When McCain went after him about confusing tactics vs. strategy and about how the surge worked in Iraq and will be how we’ll win in Afghanistan, Obama should have hit back hard with “this demonstrates your failure to see the larger strategic failure: the story about the surge should already be about our success in Afghanistan, not about how we’ll employ it there in the future”. When McCain made a reference about learning a lesson from when the US pulled out of Afghanistan after fighting off the Soviets, the obvious response was, “but you supported doing it again, pulling support from Afghanistan in order to serve our interests elsewhere… Afghans and our NATO allies there have every reason to lose confidence in our ability to focus and follow through in our support for them.”
• Obama also tip toed around the whole Georgian issue, not pointing out clearly enough that the Georgians had done some sabre rattling of their own, and the whole mess was the kind of thing that a President and our State Department should and could forsee and prevent.
• Worst case of the pot calling the lid on the kettle black: “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” McCain chastising Obama for saying publicly that the US should take out Al Qaeda and Taliban forces if Pakistan couldn’t, even when they were in Pakistan. I’m glad Obama didn’t let him get away with that one.
• How does McCain get to say that the US forces aren’t capable of being peacemakers in Somolia and at the same time tout his support for the surge (whose entire point was to make peace in Iraq?!). Forget about Obama letting him get away with that one, how come Lehrer didn’t follow up with a question on that point?
• If we spend one more minute in one more debate talking about whether Presidents vs. Secretaries of State ought to meet with or without pre-conditions, I’m going to write a letter to the Attorney General demanding the moderator be arrested on charges of treason. For goodness sakes man! We’ve invaded two countries, people literally might not get paid on Tuesday, the world has lost confidence in us politically, economically, scientifically, diplomatically and even to some extent militarily, and this is the most important thing you could come up with as a discussion point?! (Oh, and for the record, Kissinger was undoubtedly deliberately vague in his statement but obviously supports McCain, and visits are not preconditions, and you both know that, so stop with the trying to score cheap political points?)
• McCain owned the floor when it came to talking about Russia. I think, for a moment there, he actually seemed not just older, wiser and more confident, but maybe even smarter than Obama. Better watch that stuff John, or you are going to lose the anti-elite vote.
• Trying to pretend that your opponent is against storing and disposing of nuclear waste is just silly. If anybody believes that drivel, you already had their vote anyway.
• At the end of the debate both candidates seemed to be a bit off their game. McCain’s mumbling about SDI not being proven back in Reagan’s day (why is it that every time he goes back to talking about Reagan’s “foresight” he seems a bit lost?) and what came after seemed like a series of disconnected stump speech ramblings from a guy whose brain was on auto pilot… without a good compass. Obama’s response also shockingly lacked polish. Rather than chart a clear vision through the challenges the country faces, it seemed more like he was meandering from one problem to another. At one point he almost seemed to be lost in it all without a clear direction, and I’m sure a good chunk of the audience was. His transitions from one topic to another just weren’t clean enough. It seemed like he was off script. Again, given all the focus and preparation for this debate, I’d have though that the closing statement at least would have been stronger.
• While you can’t blame McCain for trying to bring up his war record at every opportunity, I thought it was a bit weak to end his debate touting the work he did to resolve the POW-MIA issue. The man keeps touting all his years in the Senate, surely there is something he did there in the last two decades that was worthy of being his closing note.

UPDATE: Newsweek was kind enough to publish Factcheck.org’s analysis of the debate. I know Factcheck.org has their own site, but I figured they probably actually get some revenue from Newsweek’s site.

Upon reflection, I don’t think this was a particularly amazing or eloquent speech. In a lot of ways, it was very calculated and a repetition of campaign speeches going back as much as a year (and in some ways even echoing Obama’s 2004 Convention speech). It still brought a tear to my eye. Why? Because this is the kind of response I’ve been hungering for in reaction to the usual “gotcha journalism”, holier than though punditry, politics of division, reducing lifetimes to one unfortunate sound bite or image, focus on the horse race not the challenges, political ADD, and dammit-we-won’t-stop-this-insanity-until-someone’s-career-is-over, campaign against some talking head rather than your opponent, yellow journalism masquerading as political correctness, idiocy that has plagued us for so long, and has basically owned the 2008 presidential campaign process almost before it started.

Seriously, I’d only have been prouder if he’d just walked up to the podium with a sign behind him saying something along the lines of, “A Message For Those Concerned By Ferraro, Wright, etc.”, waited for silence, and then with both hands, emphatically performed the Trudeau salute, then silently stepped down from the podium. Unfortunately, that path leads to the PMO in Ottawa rather than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C.

…plus, this was a bit more uplifting.

Sadly, the link in the ad took me to the homepage for Huckabee’s campaign, rather than to a page talking about his positions on the environment. I did find a link to the newsroom where it he is, <sarcasm> in a manner that in no way is an attempt to hitch on to media coverage about the Nobel Peace Prize </sarcasm>, having a Green Day while campaigning in New Hampshire this weekend. I peaked around on the “Issues” section of his website and noticed nothing on the environment, although there was a section on “Energy Independence”. Now, that doesn’t mean he has poor positions on the environment. It does mean that his campaign doesn’t think his positions on the environment are important, and it appears they are correct.

Huckabee is far from alone though. I checked out all the major contenders for the GOP and the Democrats. I also checked out Ron Paul because it is dangerous to ignore him in the blogosphere. ;-) They all universally have an “Issues” section which provides a quick summary of their candidate’s positions on key issues. Almost none of them had the environment as a top issue. Sure, there was always something about “energy independence”, but that really isn’t the same thing. Arguably, one could significantly improve the US’s “energy independence” by damming up every river in the country, ripping open the earth up in Alaska, pulling out whatever coal remains in the country no matter what shape it is in, and conquering Canada. That won’t get you so much as a Christmas Card from the Sierra Club. I’ll give the Democrat front runners credit for mentioning “global warming”. Hillary gets bonus points for being magnanimous enough to congratulate Al Gore on his Nobel Peace Prize, although she fails to mention the IPCC shared in the kudos.

The one that really stood out was Barack Obama, whose issues page has an entry for energy, and a separate entry for the environment that links to a fairly extensive article on his plans for the environment. It goes beyond talking about climate change to concerns about pollution and conservation (I’m guessing he is pulling for an endorsement from the Sierra Club). A few strikes against him for talking about “global warming” (which I find misleads people about the issue), but as far as I could see his site was the only one that used the term I prefer: “climate change”.

What does this mean? I suspect this means the environment is going to get short shrift in the US for years to come, despite Al Gore’s efforts. You can only go after the candidates so much. The public just isn’t concerned. Obama deserves a lot of credit for having the leadership to push the issue in the face of the public’s indifference.