Tag: debates

The best moment in Friday’s presidential debate, for me, was when John McCain brought up the bracelet he has been wearing during the campaign. McCain gave Barack Obama an opening and Obama came back with a knockout punch.

It was great that Obama had bracelet too, but what made the counter punch so devastating was what Barack did with the opening McCain’s bracelet story provided.

But first, here is some background. McCain has been using the bracelet anecdote on the campaign trail repeatedly. Back in March, ABC News wrote about McCain and the bracelet.

Toward the end of almost every speech he gives or informal remarks he delivers at a town hall-style meeting, Sen. John McCain tells the same story.

If you watch him carefully, you can even tell when it’s coming.

The Arizona senator will shoot his right arm forward in his suit sleeve, revealing a dark metallic band low on his wrist. It’s probably an unconscious gesture. He doesn’t hold up the bracelet. He doesn’t look at it. But very soon he will tell the story. He has told it hundreds of times.

How lovely.  Just when we need to hear from the candidates about the “financial crisis”, we learn that McSame’s canceling the Friday debate, urging Obama to do the same.  It’s a replay of the Hurricane Gustav “strategy”.  Things are, apparently, too important for politics.  Too important to thrash it out.  No.  What we need is to act presidential, and let somebody else figure out what to do.

The NY Times reports:

Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he would temporarily suspend his presidential campaign on Thursday to return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis and the $700 billion bailout package now before Congress.

Mr. McCain said he told Senator Barack Obama that he was asking the Commission on Presidential Debates to postpone the debate scheduled for Friday night.

“I am calling on the president to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself,” he said. “It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.”

That’s what we need.  No debates about how we got into this mess and how we get out of it.  No debates about who’s paying the tab.  No debates about Congressional review, reports to Congress, and judicial review of the plan.  No debates about the price of securities and how they’re selected. Oh no.   Nothing about the details.  When it comes to important issues, and in this case, the singular most important issue facing the country, what does McSame propose?  We have a nice meeting with lame duck Bush and the leadership, all of whom are directly responsible on some level for the mess, to make yet another backroom deal.

Give me a break.  What we need is a vigorous, no holds barred, forthright, face to face debate on precisely how the present “financial crisis” is going to be resolved.  Anything else, I bet, is just another smoke filled room and a rescue to the people who least deserve it.

Obama should say no, the debate must go on.  But don’t hold your breath for that.

Update: Another thing. According to Reuters McSame is making the exact, same argument he made about Gustav and the convention:

“It’s time for both parties to come together to solve this problem,” the Arizona senator said. “We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved.”

He doesn’t get that we’re all Americans and Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and/or third party supporters.  The parties are supposed to stand for something, they’re supposed to be involved in finding solutions to problems, in discussing alternatives, in pressing their viewpoints, in debating, in reasoning, in trying to convince others that theirs is the best course.  That’s what Americans do.  That’s what democracies do.  The idea that we drop those viewpoints to solve problems is ridiculous.  And it leads to backroom deals in which The People get thrown under oncoming transportation devices.

ABC is the network that BROKE the story of the Torture Conspiracy for gawds sake. But somehow, in spite of the efforts of non-Villagers….the subject never came up.

My first diary essay here.  What a cop-out I am:  I’ve nothing

worthy to say, to write.  Rather, it seems fitting and proper that

on the 5th Anniversary (beating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan “only”

took — from an American perspective — 4 – 4 1/2 years, btw) I offer what

one of my countrymen said, rather succinctly, regarding what the U.S.

policy and practice should be, when warring on another nation:

“Soldiers must understand why we’re going. The force must be strong enough so that the mission can be accomplished.  And the exit strategy needs to be well-defined. I’m concerned that we’re overdeployed around the world.  See, I think the mission has somewhat become fuzzy. Should I be fortunate enough to earn your confidence, the mission of the United States military will be [ blah, blah, blah. . . .].”

George W. Bush

October 17, 2000

I just really don’t think I have anything to add.  If I’ve violated a rule here, I hope that, being new to Docudharma, I will be forgiven by the “oldsters” here.

Mu . . .

Don’t let the CNN decide which Candidates you see and hear.

Mike’s going to put the Network feed on a screen, stand in front with a pause button, and interject his answers and commentary. He’ll catch up  during the commercials. Alternative debate live stream 8PM Eastern, 5 Pacific.