Presidential debate: If you have to do things, you have to do things

Transcript.

Well right off Obama called the place hosting the debate Old Miss when it’s proper name is clearly Ole Miss.

Obama: $700 billion is a lot of money.

McCain: “This isn’t the beginning of the end of this crisis, this is the end of the beginning”. And he will fight Fannie Mae on the beaches...


McCain says he’s been criticized for calling for the resignation of the head of the SEC. Actually, Johnny, you’ve been criticized for saying you would fire him, a power you didn’t know the president doesn’t have.

McCain believes in the “goodness and strength of the American worker”.

Christ, he’s going on about the study of bear DNA again.

McCain: I didn’t win Miss Congeniality in the Senate. You’d think he’d have dropped that line after picking a running mate who actually did win Miss Congeniality, but he’s really rolling out each and every sound bite he’s got (“I will make them famous, and you will know their names,” “I looked into Putin’s eyes and saw three letters,” etc).

Obama says we’ll be energy self-sufficient in ten years. Nonsense.


McCain on Obama: “It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left.”

What are the lessons of Iraq? McCain: “you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict.” So what he’s learned in the last five years – hey, I just realized: we’ve been in Iraq about as long as McCain was a POW -- what he’s learned is that you shouldn’t have a failed strategy. I know he was a crappy student at Annapolis, but couldn’t they have taught him that a failed strategy is, you know, bad, because of the, you know, failure and stuff?

Obama says the lesson is that we shouldn’t have gone in in the first place.


O. says McC wants to pretend the war started in 2007. (Personally I want to pretend it stopped in 2007. Or 2003. Or before it started.)

Obama says the “surge” was “a tactic designed to contain the damage of the previous four years of mismanagement of this war.” McCain’s snide riposte: “I’m afraid Sen. Obama doesn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.” Obama: I do so.

Throughout, McCain is condescending like that. That smirk visible on split-screen whenever Obama was talking is more obnoxious than Gore’s sighing ever was.


McCain upbraids Obama for talking about sending troops into Pakistan. Not for planning to do it, mind you: for talking about it. “You don’t do that. You don’t say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things. ... I guarantee you, I would not publicly state that I would attack them.”

Obama says we lost legitimacy in Pakistan because we supported Musharraf. McCain defends supporting a military dictator, indeed supports the coup, because Pakistan was a “failed state.” Five minutes later he brings up his silly “League of Democracies” idea, with no evident sense of the contradiction.

On Iran, McCain: “We cannot allow a second Holocaust, let’s make that clear.” Okay, that’s clear. I guess they’ve focus-grouped the phrase “second Holocaust.” Obama should really stop supporting a second Holocaust, it’s probably not a big vote-getter in Florida.

Now they’re arguing about whether it’s okay to negotiate with Iran. Sigh. Obama: “The notion that we would sit with Ahmadinejad and not say anything while he’s spewing his nonsense and his vile comments is ridiculous.” McCain: “So let me get this right. We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says ‘We’re gonna wipe Israel off the face of the earth,’ and we say, ‘No you’re not.’? Oh please.”


McCain, trying a little too hard: “I know the veterans. I know them well. And I know that they know that I’ll take care of them. And I’ve been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans. And I love them. And I’ll take care of them. And they know that I’ll take care of them. And that’s going to be my job.”

WHAT MCCAIN KNOWS HOW TO DO: “I know how to heal the wounds of war, I know how to deal with our adversaries, and I know how to deal with our friends.”