See BS News counted the number of times Obama said "I agree with senator McCain" in the debate - it's nine times. McCain lets Pee BS lib Jim Lehrer change the agreed subject of the debate, away from foreign policy, an area McCain knows backwards and forwards and for which Obama knows nothing. (Deliberately to give their boy an edge?) They switch it to the credit crisis, which had been plowed thoroughly the previous week with the lib media's disinformation campaign that the fault for it was the republicans. The portion that was left for foreign policy, Obama just says "I agree" to keep from having his real wacky ideas exposed and refuted. Gentleman McCain says nothing while obama is talking, but let's himself be repeatedly interrupted. McCain and his people have to do a lot better strategy wise next debate.
The format shift - both of them knew this was going to happen, and under the circumstances I don't see how it could have been otherwise. Where I fault Lehrer is allowing Obama to shift to economic issues so much of the time. I believe the Commission on Presidential Debates is responsible for the format, details, content, etc. of each debate. I didn't see on their
website anything about the special circumstance allowance, but I know I heard about it on Thursday.
Ah, the perpetual quandary. What we know to be rude behavior, verbal assaults, lying, cheating, etc., is fine when the Dems/Libs/Obama do it, but IF we behave that way, you'd think they'd just been confronted by Satan himself. Plus, since we know how sickening these techniques are, we want to keep ourselves above that level, and not see our leaders sink to it either.
At the same time, we are like spectators in a boxing match, wanting our guy (or gal) to hit back, to go for the kill. So many of the pundits say the same thing, that McCain missed opportunities to really score points, yet most of them would be condemning his "mean-spiritedness" if he did. All the while, they continue to claim there is no double standard.
Debating is not McCain's strong suit. We can only hope that substance and character will win the day, and we will not have to watch our political system deteriorate further. The days is coming: are we to be a country who will elect a strong, principled man to the presidency, or will it be the American Idol election era?