Debate live-blogging #2

10:02 Audience member Phil Elliot asked how the US’s economic woes will affect the country’s ability to be a peacemaker. McCain answered totally about the US’s ability to field an effective military.
When he ended (with a jab against Obama’s claimed lack of experience), Brokaw asked the same question again but again in terms of the US having military effectiveness.
Actually, Obama answered very effectively, including noting that McCain had been quite wrong on going into Iraq and noting the huge cost of that decision.
Brokaw asked a follow-up question about (military) “humanitarian intervention”, citing the example of DR-Congo. Obama answered it well, saying there will always be atrocities that the US can’t combat on its own and therefore it needs to have good relations with many others around the world.
A question about Pakistan… Obama says his previous thing about “not coddling Pakistan.”
Obama: “We will kill Bin Laden, we will crush Al-Qaeda, and that has to be our number one priority.”
On substance, McCain is answering this one better. “We need to get the support of the Pakistani government and go into Waziristan– where I’ve been– and win the support of the people there.”
Interesting little exchange about who’s less bellicose. McCain said he would be like Teddy Roosevelt: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Obama recalled McCain’s “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”, his threat to annihilate North Korea, and his pre-2003 eagerness to invade Iraq…

20 thoughts on “Debate live-blogging #2”

  1. It looked for all the world as if McCain refused to shake Obama’s hand! Obama went to him and extended his hand, and McCain pointed him toward Cindy and walked away.

  3. the country’s ability to be a peacemaker
    I’m sure this line got a lot of chucks overseas, especially among the survivors of US “peacemaking” (the dead can’t speak), but it does indicate how effective the government/media propaganda machine has been.

  4. I watched some small bits of the debate on CNN (really couldn’t stomach watching much of it, and all I really am interested in is how the public reacts). One interesting thing I noticed was that the “Ohio undecided voters” instant graph they had on the screen rather plummeted when McCain made a remark about Russia’s aggression against Georgia. Is it possible that ordinary Americans actually understand what really happened there despite all the propaganda? If so, maybe there IS some hope.

  5. Don
    US peacemakers.
    One of the reasons I have a great deal of time and admiration for Bill Clinton is because he sent us the Marvellous Senator Mitchell as a negotiator in Ireland once both sides realised that they couldn’t win the war in Ireland.
    How in the name of all that is good and holy he managed to get Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness to share power and government in Northern Ireland I do not know.
    The EU and lots of investment had a lot to do with it.
    The economic growth in the Irish Republic had a lot to do with it.
    But in the end Bill wanted it to happen.
    We saw the results at David Irvine’s funeral last year.
    The widow of the late PUP leader David Ervine has said the family have taken great comfort from the outpouring of sympathy following his death.
    Speaking on Radio Ulster’s Talkback programme, Jeanette Ervine said his funeral in east Belfast last week had been a wonderful celebration of his life.
    A cross-section of politicians, including Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, attended the service in the Methodist Mission on the Newtownards Road.
    After he quit being President, Bill delivered the Dimbleby Lecture on the BBC where in a marvellous Tour de Force he listed all the problems a world leader should be thinking about.
    http://tinyurl.com/3hzxdz
    I particularly liked his take on Terrorism and Victory of a Point of View.
    I think victory for our point of view depends upon four things. First we have to win the fight we’re in, in Afghanistan and against these terrorist networks that threaten us today. Second, we in the wealthy countries have to spread the benefits of the twenty first century world and reduce the risks so we can make more partners and fewer terrorists in the future. Third, the poor countries themselves must make some internal changes so that progress for their own people becomes more possible. And finally, all of us will have to develop a truly global consciousness about what our responsibilities to each other are and what our relationships are to be. Let me take each of these issues quickly in turn.
    First, terror. The deliberate killing of non-combatants has a very long history. No region of the world has been spared it and very few people have clean hands. In 1095, Pope Urban II urged the Christian soldiers to embark on the first crusade to capture Jerusalem for Christ. Well, they did it, and the very first thing they did was to burn a synagogue with three hundred Jews, they then proceeded to murder every Muslim woman and child on the Temple Mount in a travesty that is still being discussed today in the Middle East. Down through the millennium, innocents continued to die, more in the twentieth century than in any previous period. In my own country, we’ve come a very, very long way since the days when African slaves and native Americans could be terrorized or killed with impunity, but still we have the occasional act of brutality or even death because of someone’s race or religion or sexual orientation. This has a long history.
    Sadly I havent heard anything remotely equivalent from the candidates.
    Mourn for a lost opportunity.

  7. Frank,
    Great post. Thank you. As I’ve written before, I think the world can learn from Ireland and the Irish (and you know I’m not the patronizing sort) because while Clinton and Mitchell undoubtedly helped it’s the Irish that made it happen. And the Northern Irish. (I know they prefer that appellation but the rest of us tend not to discriminate.)
    And now another plea for Mary Robinson to move onto the world scene. She would be a good replacement for the clown Ban ki-Moon.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-7U9e8CS_0

  8. On the radio, Brokaw sounded mean and cranky, particularly toward Obama. He asked both candidates what would be their top priority on taking office, listing two obvious ones like war and economy and tossed in a third from Right-field, “reform of entitlements” (Who paid him to say that? Entitlements have been out of the public discourse for quite awhile, though conservatives are always ready to blame them for everything.)
    McCain hedged the question by saying he could do all three at once; Obama showed his liberal cred by ignoring “entitlements” altogether, and throwing in education instead.

  9. http://tinyurl.com/3tlhbk
    Country “C” Medallions
    submitted by Marta Hnizda
    Ingredients
    24 pieces of crow breast meat (no bones) (12 crows)
    2 medium onions (chopped)
    6 tblsp of oil
    5 slices of bacon (chopped)
    1 big or 2 small turnips (peeled & chopped)
    1/3 of celery root (peeled & chopped) – note: substitute with celery
    3 tblsp wet mustard
    1 tblsp lemon juice
    salt, pepper to taste
    dash of paprika
    2 bay leaves
    2 juniper berries – note: substitute with allspice
    1 tblsp Majorjam (crushed)
    1 heaping tblsp of mayonnaise
    water
    Preparation
    Sauté onions and bacon in oil until golden. Add meat, spices and sauté some more. Add vegetables and the rest of the ingredients except mayonnaise. Add enough water to keep the meat almost covered. Simmer slowly, adding water as it evaporates. In about 3 hours you will see that the meat is soft enough to cut with a fork. Take the meat out and place on heated platter or dish to keep warm. Remove the bay leaf and put all the gravy (about 2 cups) in a blender and blend. When thoroughly blended, add mayonnaise and blend shortly.
    Add gravy to meat and serve over rice with a winter salad. Serves four adults.

  11. Sounds yummy, Frank, and I assume the bacon will be turkey bacon, and not the real kind that comes from pigs?

  12. Of course!!
    But back to the wine. These seem to be recomendations for wildfowl. I found Ostrich unexciting when I tried it.
    Ostrich
    Pinotage, South Africa (red)
    Pheasant
    Rioja, Spain (red)
    Pigeon
    Chianti Classico, Italy (red)
    Quail
    Cabernet Sauvignon
    ps I trust you read Mr Friedman in yesterday’s NY times. He has a devastating turn of phrase while talking about Paris Hilton and tax.

  13. I avoid reading that self-important, overblown empty bag of hot gaseous substance. Any time he says anything intelligent or worth hearing it is nothing more than the broken clock principle at work.

  14. and on the broken clock principle an empty bag would not contain hot gaseous substance or anything else.

  16. You might enjoy David Brooks then.
    The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.
    ……
    This year could have changed things. The G.O.P. had three urbane presidential candidates. But the class-warfare clichés took control. Rudy Giuliani disdained cosmopolitans at the Republican convention. Mitt Romney gave a speech attacking “eastern elites.” (Mitt Romney!) John McCain picked Sarah Palin.
    Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable. Her convention and debate performances were impressive. But no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the “normal Joe Sixpack American” and the coastal elite.
    She is another step in the Republican change of personality. Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all — men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch.
    And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away.

  17. “Palin is smart…”
    Without a teleprompter she does not come across even a little bit smart.
    “Politically skilled”
    Does that mean she knows when and how thick to lay on the small town hick persona and when not to?
    “courageous”
    Yeah – it takes enormous courage to torment and kill wolves and bears from planes and helicopters!
    “likable.”
    She is one of the most DISlikable people I have encountered in my life. All facade, no structure.
    “Her convention and debate performances were impressive.”
    So, she reads a teleprompter really impressively, and if coached intensively for several weeks, she can parrot what she has memorized, provided she can find the right cue card. If she is forced to go off script, however, she returns to her usual habit of producing an incoherent word salad.
    “But…Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the “normal Joe Sixpack American” and the coastal elite.”
    Ah yes – one of Palin’s most egregious lies is her claim to be, as she put it, a “Main Streeter”, or a “hockey mom”. How many Main Streeter Joe Six Packer hockey moms have an annual income of around a quarter million dollars (and remember, this is in Alaska), a lakeside home with a float plane at the dock, and two vacation homes? How many Main Streeter Joe Six Packer hockey moms have income, property, and investments that add up to significantly more than $1 million?

  19. Oh no, say it ain’t so, Joe!
    But wait! Apparently these people do not know that Sarah Palin already investigated herself and yesterday released her findings that she committed no wrongdoing! So, you see? She’s as clean as can be.

  20. Oh Dear. It is Saturday
    That awful Tina Fey woman will be making a cruel skit of the poor girl.
    And Newsweek showed her moustache. Where will it all end?

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