I watched about the first 45 minutes of the debate last night, but turned it off after my stomach wouldn’t stop turning.
Plus, I wanted to see who got voted out of the Big Brother 9 house (Natalie was back-doored so hard that for once she didn’t have a word to say on her way out the door).
Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous (he looks so grown up with his ‘big boy’ haircut) went after the candidates about their latest campaign blunders — Hillary taking sniper fire in Bosnia (she didn’t), Barack Obama insulting gun owners and religous people (he did), etc.
The questions weren’t meant to press the candidates on the issues and weren’t really as tough as some in the right-o-sphere are making them out to be — they were simply lobbed up there to give each candidate a forum to further spin “what they meant” rather than what they actually said.
At least Hillary admitted she lied — well, she didn’t use those words (she should have). Instead she said, “I said things that I knew were not true.”
Uh, yeah. We call that lying, Hillary.
Obama preferred to continue shucking and jiving around the truth.
The parts that I did watch though, I’d say Hillary was the clear winner. Obama looked pissed off that he was still answering questions about his shady relationships, his views on America and Americans, and other things Obama didn’t want to talk about…
____
OTHERS
- Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic.com thinks Obabm got blown out too:
Keeping the score card, there’s no way Obama could [have] fared worse. Nearly 45 minutes of relentless political scrutiny from the ABC anchors and from Hillary Clinton, followed by an issues-and-answers session in which his anger carried over and sort of neutered him.
- AJ Strate thinks that both Clinton and Obama failed miserably on the most important question of the night — Iraq.
- Michelle Malkin notes that the Left-o-sphere is in a blather (when aren’t they?) about the debate:
How dare they explore questions of character, truthfulness, and judgment?
- Scott at Powerline on Obama:
Most striking to me was Obama’s dour attitude. The man is not a happy warrior.
- Even Andy Sully — the guy who verbally felates Obama as part of his daily routine — thinks it was a bad night for Obama:
It was a lifeless, exhausted, drained and dreary Obama we saw tonight. I’ve seen it before when he is tired, but this was his worst performance yet on national television. He seemed crushed and unable to react. This is big-time politics and he’s up against the Clinton wood-chipper. But there is no disguising the fact that he wilted, painfully.
Yep. That’s what I saw too.
- Ace on the difference between Hillary and Barack:
What distinguishes them among Democrats are issues of character (Hillary’s lying, Obama’s discomforting comfort with radicals and terrorists) and the widespread belief on the left that Hillary is a “neocon” moderate who lies about her liberal leanings, whereas Obama is the general article and really believes in old school big-L Liberalism, and is in fact lying about his moderation to preserve his electability. Only by asking about issues of character and background and a candidate’s real, unexpressed political thinking can possibly shed light as to whether those readings on the candidate are true or not.
The real winner from last night according to Mark Hemingway at NRO ? Sen. John McCain.
I expect that debate might have picked up a heck of a lot of Independents for McCain. I thought Obama was terrible and Hillary was composed and clearly won the debate but the left thinks Obama won according to the polls I saw. No surprise there. As I’ve said before, he can do no wrong in their eyes.
What got me the most though was both of their answers on Iraq. They don’t care what the situation is in Iraq when they take office. They’re going to pull out by a fixed timetable starting right after being elected. They don’t care what the consequences are. McCain is going to eat them alive on that one.
When the moderators carry your talking points for you, yes, then you win the debate, assuming a significant number of voters are still watching the broadcast networks’ campaign coverage, which they are not.
From the Democratic Underground:
Hmm…..
Character counts. The questions were definitely tilted that way, but that’s what most people care about. Without good character, you can’t trust a person no matter what he/she says. I’ll tell you one thing. If anybody finds even one instance when Obama was in church or in the presence of Wright when any of his Goddamn America remarks (or any of those we saw on television) were made, he will be finished. America will not tolerate that kind of deceit.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
Dianne – you must’ve missed it, but the Wright and “clinging” controversies have had zero effect on the Pennsylvania primary, and even less effect on the national poll numbers. Only in your wildest wingnut wet dreams do regular voters think that Obama is an effete anti-American elitist who is out of touch with them, despite the best efforts of the MSM to disseminate right-wing talking points about Democrats. Once Obama slays the toothy Clinton dragon the media will return everyone’s attention to how little daylight there is between Junior’s and McSame’s positions, and he will ride off into the Sedona sunset where his brunch of Ahi tuna with Hollandaise and swiss chard awaits.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1731655,00.html
Patricia is sounding more and more desperate.
Anonymous coward #2: Nah, not desperate, just committed to educating maybe one or two of you mushy-headed wingnuts as to the danger and folly of your hoary and despicably authoritarian worldviews.
Pat, I don’t know if they’ve had an affect in Pa or not. The voters will determine the outcome and as for the national numbers, it’s far too early to tell. You do realize, don’t you, that McCain is ahead in almost all the national polls against both democratic candidates, but even I am not willing to make book on how that will actually play out in November.
I don’t care if Obama shops at Whole Foods while millions of people in the world are starving. None of the candidates eat grits for breakfast. I want to hear more about his past record. I hope when we get to the Presidential debates, he’s asked about more substantial things like his “leadership” to defeat the Born Alive Infants Act in Illinois or maybe after he “studies” the SCOTUS briefs concerning the DC ban on guns, how he’ll handle my right to have a handgun.
That was on last night?
Why watch, their lips would have to be moving.
Henh…Wednesday night is South Park night, and last night was very gooooood!
/Grapes of Wraith good
John McCain Wins Democratic Debate in Philly
It helps to have a few surrogates from the Liberal Media.
Honestly, 45 minutes before a question on health care, Iraq, or the economy? I’m sick of those incompetent Disney Channel stooges- these BS questions on lapel pins (or earth tones) are exactly how we ended up with the worst president in generations!