Sep 26 2008
Live Blogging The 1st Presidential Debate Of 2008 – I Have A Bracelet Too!
Update: Michelle Malkin notes O-bomba had to READ the name on his bracelet! (Near the end of the clip):
Dumb move Obama. When you plan a political stunt like this, make sure you rehearse it enought to ensure it comes off genuine.
Update: Obama’s Kissinger fiction was when McCain turned Obama into a floor mop:
Obama” “we’ll look into it”. Yeah, Obama looked really Presidential! H/T Gateway Pundit.
Update: Damn, the McCain campaign is setting speed records on adervtising. 60 minutes after the debate here we go:
BTW – Loved the format. It’s a keeper.
Biden Gaffe Update: Biden loses his history again when he claims Reagan asked “if you liked the last 8 years, ….” – Joe, you’re having a blonde moment. Carter was only in office 4 years. – end Biden gaffe update.
Summary: Obama was terrible. He got incoherent and defensive. His summary was idiotic (my dad wrote a leter, scroll to the end). I have highlighted in bold-italics on key points. My guess – McCain gets 7 point boost in the polls. Tag line of the night: “I have a bracelet too!” - end summary
Will McCain’s superior knowledge of foreign policy take the day? Will Obama’s efforts to surrender Iraq to al-Qaeda at any cost come back to bite him? Will McCain be perceived as a seasoned leader? Will Obama come out as the partisan pitbull (well, poodle in a pitbull mask)? Will McCain’s ability to debate overshadow the telemprompter kid? Will Obama finally realize America doesn’t have 58 states (’been to 57, have one more to go”). Will Joe Biden get some history on the Great Depression, Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt, and when the TV become a product for the public?
Holly hot air folks, what will our heroes face tonight! Stay tuned for what should be the most watched presidential debate in history!
9:01 PM Eastern: Obama goes first, advantage McCain (rebuttal is always the stronger play)
9:07 PM Eastern: First Question: Eisenhower said we must have financial solvency as well as national security. Where do the candidates stand?
Obama: Worst finacial crisis since Depression. How does this affect main street America? $700 Billion is POTENTIALLY a lot of money (you think?). Obama is stumbling without his telemprompter. Ugh!
McCain: McCain recognizes Sen Kennedy’s illness, sends wishes. McCain is talking to America directly, Obama recited talking points. Talks about the lack of House GOP support.
5 minute cross debate: How does each support the plan?
Obama: Haven’t seen the plan. Optimistic on getting a plan. Plain out lying about his calls to raise alarm bells. Wants to know how it came to be? (should ask his pals from Fannie Mae).
McCain: I also warned about the train wreck – many did. Let’s talk about Eisenhower and his time right before D-Day. Two letters, Conrgatulations for success and resignation if it failed. We have lost accountability. Greed is rewarded, excess rewarded, lack of over sight rewarded.
Obama: Ideology has been what is good for Wall Street (Obama pals) and not mainstreet.
McCain: We have to fix the system, Main Street paying the price. I have a belief we can make it throught this.
9:14 PM Eastern: Second question: What are the fundamental differences between the two:
McCain: Must reign in spending, GOP did not stop spending. Earmarking as a drug. Congressmen in jail due to the addiction. Will veto every earmarked Bills. Obama wants to spend billions of dollars.
Obama: McCain right, I suspended my earmarks (a recovering addict?). McCain is proposing $300B in tax cuts, earmarks only $16B. Grow the economy from bottom up. Runs with the same lie about tax cut for 95% Americans (when less than 50% pay income taxes).
5 minute open debate:
McCain: Obama suspended his earmarks AFTER his bid for election. Only $18B? It has tripled and is corrupting Congress. I have opposed. Obama wants $800B in new spending. McCain wants to cut taxes AND spending.
Obama: Health care for everyone is important (and he pays for it – with our money!). Tax policies targeted for well to do (and small companies like me).
McCain: Obama finds the business tax objectionable. America is 2nd highest at 35%. Ireland 11%. That is why business move offshore. A CR is coming up this week with 2,000 earmarks! Obama has his pork in his pocket from past earmarks. Every familly gets a tax credit to buy insurance (woohoo from me!).
Obama: Average America, you will not see a tax increase (except when we tax the companies who will pass them on to us consumers).
McCain: Christmas tree energy bill this year, I voted against it, Obama for it (that left a mark). McCain is rattling Obama.
9:23 PM Eastern: 3rd Question: As President, the resulting rescue plan will cause you to give up something, what will it be?
Obama: Range of things will be delayed. No doubt, we cannot do everything. Must haves: Energy Independence (usual laundry list), Health care system (that’s going to be expen$ive), make sure we are “competing” – whatever that means. Infrastructure, roads, internet, etc, etc.
McCain: No matter what we have to cut spending. Obama is most liberal senator (hard to reach across the aisle from that far from the left). Plenty of spending cuts, fixed price contracts (bring ‘em on!). We have a large government. I have fought wasteful programs and contracts. Scrub every element of government.
5 minute debate:
Obama: Things have to be delayed (Lehrer: “Like what?”). Energy independence can be delayed! (thanks Barack, extend that $4 a gallon a few more years). Obama is babbling again. Google for Government???? Obidiot stole Palin’s plan for putting the budget on the internet. Google for Government??
McCain: How about a spending freeze for everthing but national defense, veterans, and entitlements.
Obama: I want to increase spending here, there and everywhere.
McCain: We are sending $700B overseas for energy. There is more saving in energy independence (nuclear power especially) and the ability to create jobs than any ’surgical’ on energy than spending on day care.
9:36 PM Eastern: Question: Lessons of Iraq:
McCain: Cannot have a failed strategy which brings failure. In 2003 I said we need to fix the strategy and fought for it. Petraeus and The Surge was the result. We will come home with victory and success. Now that we will succeed and our troops will come home without defeat. Defeat would have widened the war, empowered Iran and cost us more.
Obama: We disagree, we shouldn’t be in the war at all (yea, would of, could of, should of). Moves to Afganistan.
McCain: Next president doesn’t decide getting into Iraq, but how to get out. Goes over Obama gaffes on surrendering at all costs. Obama’s committee on Afghanistan has never met.
Obama: I am proud of Biden (where did that come from). He seems lost
McCain: Obama doesn’t understand the difference between tactics and strategy. Troops: Let us win! Obama, wanted to cut funds to the troops.
My notes: Obama is slowly falling apart. He keeps running off topic. Folks, Hate to say this but I want to watch the meltdown! Suspending this for a bit.
9:56 PM Eastern: Obama’s infamous ‘zingers’ are falling flat. McCain is raking him over Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, Taliban and al-Qaeda. Loved the ‘grab defeat from the jaws of victory” line!
10:00 PM Eastern: Obama: I have a bracelet too! al-Qaeda is still sending out videos! What is this man talking about????
10:08 PM Eastern: McCain noted Obama voted against calling Iranian terrorists “terrorists”. Obama stumbled badly on the issue. He wants to talk, as if you can trust anything Iranians say. McCain brings up Obama’s plans to sit down with the world’s thugs without prep-conditions, legitimizing the thugs.
10:11 PM Eastern: Obama: I can talk to whomever I want, and Ahmedinejad is not possibly the most powerful person in Iran (just the President). Ugh – bring us Palin!
10:14 PM Eastern: Obama may have let out a national secret when he said North Korea passed nuclear technology to Syrai. We know the man is getting intel briefs – he shouldn’t have even hinted at that one.
10:17 PM Eastern: Obama has lost it! McCain has rattled Obama badly. Obama even said Bush has been silent on our enemies (ever hear of the “axis of evil”). The plan was Obama would rattle McCain. Clearly, Obama is becoming incoherent (6 party, 6 point, er….).
10:22 PM Eastern: On Russia: Obama lists countries, McCain drops names of leaders of countries. McCain;s best point was Obama’s equivocation on Russia;’s invasion (both attacker and victim need to show ‘restraint’). Again, McCain just wiping the floor with Obama.
10:24 PM Eastern: Obama pulled a Palin. He went from Russia to oil independence. But that was the one part of his plan he said would have to be sacrificed in light of the financial crisis bailout.
10:31 PM Eastern: Final Question – what is the chance of another terrorist attack.
McCain: we have more work to do. We are safer, but we are not safe yet.
Obama: Safer in some ways. Need to protect ports, transportation, chemical plants. We need to protect against nukes. We are spending too much on missile defense (but I support). The man is jumping around again. McCain has him totally rattled.
10:32 PM Eastern: Obama gaffe: we have been obsessed on Iraq for 8 years (sorry dude, only been at war there for 5). Remember McCain’s statement that Petraeus and and Bin Laden agree on one thing: Iraq was the central battlefield in the war on terror.
10:40 PM Eastern: McCain: Experience counts. I love our veterans, I will take care of them. Obama is showing stubborness like Bush did with his inability to move off his failed Iraq views.
Obama: My dad’s From Kenya. He wrote a letter. I have a bracelet too.
McCain: When I came home from prison I worked on issues to bring our veterans home.
O-Bomba! The man flamed.
36 Responses to “Live Blogging The 1st Presidential Debate Of 2008 – I Have A Bracelet Too!”
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I suspect that if Obama manages to keep from saying anything stupid, like Roosevelt and television and the crash of ‘29, we will hear, ad naseum, how he looked presidential, yada yada yada and how old and tired McCain looked. Stay tuned for the after the show show.
McCain’s first rebuttal was lame.
First question – Obama 1, McCain 0.
Obama is lying through his teeth but McCain won’t call him on it. Lame, lame, lame. McCain just agreed with Obama’s claim that Republicans are responsible. mega-lame. maybe fatally lame.
Somebody needs to send McCain the video. It’s beyond lame. For God’s sake, tell the people that Frank & Dodd need to resign and why!!!!! It would have stopped the show.
mccain is letting obama do the shuck and jive.
but this exchange is better. Running score – Obama 1, McCain 1.
Question 3 – cut spending, the obvious answer. Obama could only promise to delay spending, not cut anything. McCain nailed this one. Obama 1, McCain 2.
we have to become energy independant – but we can’t pay for that? LOL!
McCain – spending freeze, yes! Obama – duh-duh-duh-duh-duh
o called John, Tom!!! He’s stumbling and muttering.
John is running circles around 0, imho. He looks soooooo much more experienced and accomplished. He knows his stuff.
As to Frank and Dodd, John cannot look petty AT THIS JUNCTURE.
I,I,I,I,I,I, uh,uh,uh,uh……
lol – cnn has scorecards up showing Obama winning on every question. Oh no, they’re not in the tank, they’re not cheerleaders. no, no, no.
Obama is saying it would have been better if we had surrendered Iraq years ago. gawd.
oh my god – he’s accusing McCain of saying things he never said.
nice comeback – Obama doesn’t understant the difference between tactics and strategy.
I actually agree with you Ivehadit but do not think my neighbors will hear the same thing that you and I will. Think McCain doing much better in this area.
Hi Owl!
What a night! You could be right because I am feeling like Dennis Miller: don’t undertand many of my fellow Americans anymore…except that many are negative types who are having a pity party and want us to be as miserble as they are.
Anyway, I think McCain, now talking about Russia, is hitting it out of the park!!!
And I love how he keeps saying,”Sen. Obama doesn’t understand…” Pow!!
o is lying now. McCain called him on o’s first statement about “both sides need to calm down”, yada,yada,yada.
o: “I warned this administration”. WHO THE HELL IS this twerp from Ill.? WHO WOULD BE LISTENING TO HIM BUT HIMSELF!
Pitiful.
wasn’t much of a secret – after the Isreali bombing last year, everyone knows that NK passed nuclear secrets to Syria.
Obama is now talking about the energy plan that he previously said he couldn’t fund.
Obama did a lot of stuttering and stammering and uh, you know.
I’m gonna read some leftie blogs, I’m sure they saw it as a major victory for Obama. they couldln’t have been watching the debate I saw. O interrupted frequently, McCain only once or twice. McCain seemed to know what he was talking about, O seemed to be blowing smoke and me too. I’ve got a bracelet too. I did already know about syria and nukes.
I think McCain wiped the floor with Obama. But – those idiot independents in the Luntz focus group think Obama won. He understood them, felt their pain.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
SjrHead,
Independent voters on Los Vegas?????
LOL!
I think Obama did not have to win, just not lose. He is so smooth (even when he is lying) that only news junkies will catch him out. He skated so I call him the winner. McCain did really good on foreign policy but he started absolutely terrible with the financial problems. Terrible. I hate it. I want to mop the floor with Obama because there is plenty to do it with. It just didn’t happen tonight and it should have.
Just saw over at FR per WeeklyStandard that Obama misstated Kissinger.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2091536/posts
Henry Kissinger believes Barack Obama misstated his views on diplomacy with US adversaries and is not happy about being mischaracterized. He says: “Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.”
Looks like you already saw it!
Henry Kissinger did not take long to personally correct Senator Obama.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/09/tws_exclusive_kissinger_unhapp.asp
I think McCain won the debate handily for the following reason.
When a topic was introduced, such as Afghanistan, Obama would spend his time with fluffy answers like “…well, we need more troops in Afghanistan because…uh…it’s been shown that more troops are…errr…larger in number than fewer troops and thus better at finding …uh…Bin Laden, who’s still around somewhere, but I’ll find him by golly if I’m elected…” In contrast, McCain would provide thoughtful, detailed answers showcasing his extensive experience, including describing his ** visits ** to Afghanistan, talking with generals and troops, and explaining our history and relationship with Pakistan’s government. I actually learned several things listening to McCain (for example, about the oil pipeline through Georgia)…couldn’t say I learned much from Obama’s responses (except that he was ill-prepared for a substantive foreign policy discussion).
Drudge early poll
MCCAIN
68% 89,119
OBAMA
30% 38,555
NEITHER
2% 3,005
Drudge early polling indicate 68% for McCain
30% for Obama
Guess where Obama got the information about Kissinger and meeting with Iran?
When Katie C. was interviewing Sarah (#2 interview), Sarah said that Kissinger would never agree to a meeting with Iran without preconditions.
I think Katie said, after the interview, that she checked with Kissinger and she said he would meet with Iran President without preconditions. So it appears Obama used Katie’s information. Wonder if Katie and Obama will issue a correction?
Thought Maverick was amazing tonight.
Sadly, not sure everyone saw the same… time will tell.
WWS- Re: Economy…
I was really, really disappointed too. I wanted McCain to be on the attack here. I heard Obama spin and lie and cast blame…
Then it occurred to me. McCain is putting Country First, again. There are ongoing negotiations on a bailout bill that the country really, really needs our Congressmen to get right. Attacking now — injecting partisan presidential politics into the bill — would have enormous consequences.
Have no fear. I really believe McCain will “make them famous. You will know their names.” Just not yet. He’ll do it next week — after the deal is passed. After the markets have rebounded. After it’s clear that we’ve dodged a major bullet.
Then we’ll start to hear about Democrats pushing subprime loans and taking money from the bankers and refusing sensible reforms. And (if a rumor I saw on the internet somewhere is true) talking about Obama’s lawsuit to force a major bank to increase its subprime lending back in the ’90’s.
Names will be named. Blame will be cast.
But, Country First.
There was a point in time that I thought you might be reasonable, AJ. Holy cow, was I wrong.
Please point out anything above that is different from the hyper-partisan sites like redstate, freerepublic, etc.
So, how does it feel to know that you’re a Bush lemming now? Proud of yourself?
A Bush lemming?
Everyone: Put yourself in breschau’s shoes… what kind of frame of mind would you have to be in to sit there and type to AJ that ‘you’re a Bush lemming now?’ Even though you know AJ did not mention Bush other than when a nominee did.
I think McCain acquitted himself well on the foreign policy issues, but the sub-prime mess was a swing and a miss for him.
This was an opportunity to say “the mess we are in is clearly not a failure of capitalism, it is a failure once again of government meddling in the private sector. We have two smoking-gun pieces of legislation that occurred during the Carter and Clinton years that essentially dictated to banks who they could loan their money to. If you had money to loan, would you want the federal government to tell you who to loan money to? This fiasco is not a product of de-regulation, just the opposite, our problems today in the financial sector are born of over-regulation, government clearly provided banks with financial incentives to create these worthless mortgages”.
How hard is that to say?
[...] As I said below Obama was rattled, angry, defensive and many times rude. His zingers looked like arrows made out of limp noodles, they just died before the got half way to McCain. He was very much the “me too” candidate, from “John McCain is right, …” to the just horrible “I have a bracelet too (let me read it here a second)”. [...]
[...] UPDATE: Others getting in their late-night and early-morning points — Michelle Malkin, Ed Driscoll, AJ Strata. [...]
AJ, just info. I had a double comment above about Drudge report. the reason it was a double was that when I entered it the first time, I went to edit it but it said it had been marked as spam and I couldn’t edit it. then time ran out on edit and it didn’t post so I added another comment. Later the orig comment showed up.
While I agree that McCain could have done better on the economic issue, I still believe he did just as well or even better than Obama. I don’t give Obama any credit for understanding what caused the situation any more than McCain did. McCain certainly knows foreign policy much better. I give Obama no credit at all on foreign policy.
no wonder breschau likes Obama – they’re both whiny little bee-yotches.
breschau:
I thought you were leaving.
I think McCAin won, Obama looked like he was going to cry. I swear the man was developing a tick.
As for the first question, the negotiations for the bill are still ongoing you will not hear either of them give specifics on the rescue bill now.
As for why McCain did not go after Dodd, etc..I think he is trying to get this deal done and does not want to call anyone out until it is done.
besides there is enough blame to go around.
And I call bs on Obama’s claim that he saw this coming, I want some proof of that. Everyone knew the bubble had burst, but considering the fact that even as late as last year Barney Frank was trying to get FHA to drop its down payment requirement from 3% to 0, I don’t think Democrats are in any position to be preaching to Bush or McCain or anyone else.
>And I call bs on Obama’s claim that he saw this coming, I want some proof of that.
Me too
Terrye, of course, the thugs are not in a position to preach and of course, McCain won. Does not matter. What matters is what the other millions see and hear.
Had phone calls from relatives about the debate because they know I will be watching. All will be voting McCain but a few missed it. So I test the waters with ‘McCain said he didn’t have the presidential seal yet’ and???? A couple of Obama lies? Yes?
You have to be a junkie that reads blogs to understand all that nuance because the average person will not catch it all. Many just know it stinks and that is enough. Thank God.
terrye, those libs never keep their word.
[...] crass is Obama and his news media puppets? Remember that “I have a bracelet too” moment when Obama couldn’t remember the name of the dead soldier he was about to use [...]