by Richard Spencer
“Jim, let me just make a point. I’ve got a bracelet, too…”
~Barack Obama
This statement, better than anything else said, sums up Barack Obama’s performance at the presidential debate last night. Coming in a close second would be this exchange on the Georgia-Russia situation (or was it the Wall Street bailouts?):
LEHRER: “You see any—do you have a major difference with what [McCain just said?”
OBAMA: “No, actually, I think Senator McCain and I agree for the most part on these issues.”
The bracelet comment was more poignant in that it reveals who Barack Obama could have been—and most definitely is not—as a presidential candidate.
I can’t say for sure, but I imagine the soldier’s mom who gave Obama the plastic bracelet imagines he’s something close to George McGovern or Ron Paul, or maybe even a real peacenik or http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=5662 America’s worldwide military commitments is ludicrous–the opposite is true.Because Obama has gone this direction, all he was capable of last night was some me-too-ism (most notably with Georgia and the bailouts), a few “I told you so”s with regard to invading Iraq (which make him seem like he’s stuck in the past, re-fighting all those battles from 2003), and then, worst of all, some aping of GOP war-hawk rhetoric in a new context. Obama was essentially arguing that his opponent “took his eye off the ball” in Afghanistan and missed the real central front on the war on terror. Obama wanted us to believe that he would be best suited to enact a new surge in the land of the Afghans and expand a war there that is looking like it’s even more unwinnable than Iraq.
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/a_debate_about_nothing/