Tonight Joe Biden and Sarah Palin square off in their one and only debate and I'll blogging about that after the action goes down. But, for now, let's look at the first debate between Obama and McCain. Naturally, I watched the debate as the combatants went round after round. What I saw was a clear win for Barack Obama. What disturbed me however, after the debate was not only the analysts calling it a draw or close, but callers into left wing radio shows, and lefties I know claiming, "I just wish Barack did more..." "I wish he had defended this or that..." Listen folks y'all need to calm down. Barack won that debate and here's why. When McCain was frustrated he would fall back to his condescending line,"I hate to say it but Barack simply doesn't understand, or have the experience..." Now if McCain was to win on these points he would have had to say something like this,"Barack doesn't get, in actuality it is this way..." McCain did not do this. He merely gave partial resume points and talked about his many years in the game. This does not point out where Senator Obama got said point wrong. Furthermore, it is what one does with his experience that counts. You don't get the big brownie points for existing.
As far as the complainers' point about Barack not defending himself: Not so. Barack corrected McCain many times on the issues he felt needed clarity. If Barack defended every single wrong point or lie of McCain's he would have been playing defense all night. And even if Barack were to be correct on these points, America would see him as defensive. This would also shorten the length of time that Barack would get to play offense. To put a further point on it, take a boxing match. Sometimes a boxer will take a shot to the body when he knows that his next shot is going to come over the top and catch the opponent on the button (chin).
People in general like to win no question. I'd argue that Americans like a decisive win...a stomping or a trouncing, if you will, and that is part of the problem. We want our football team to win by 4 touchdowns, we want all our Olympic athletes to win as many golds as Micheal Phelps. We want our basketball teams to win by 40 points and our fave boxer to knock the other guy out, not win by split decision.
Barack had a serious battle with Hillary Clinton. He defended himself when he felt necessary and he ducked/ignored mud slinging at other times. He stuck to his guns and won out in the end. Maybe he's doing the same thing with McCain. He's now in a bigger fight and again it appears that he is sticking to a tested strategy. I should point out that Barack is known to be weaker on the debate floor than he is at the podium delivering a speech. You whiners wanted him to go for the jugular from start to finish and that is not Barack Obama. Stop asking him to be what he is not. I repeat; Obama won round one of the debates and you nay-saying 'supporters' need to stop whining and move on. In other words; take the win people, take the win!
Posted by JB at 11:03 AM