McCain v. Obama - Debate #1: First Blood!

6:00pm PDT - I can see the back of Jim Lehrer’s head. He already looks annoyed that America only sees him every 4 years when he moderates a debate.

6:01 - What the hell!?? We have scorecards!! (I’m watching this on CNN) Begala, Bennett, Borger, Brazile, Castellanos, and King. Let’s get it on!

6:03 - Jim Lehrer says “there will be no noise or cheers of any kind ...except right now!” as the two walk out and shake hands awkwardly. I’m surprised McCain is here considering it took him 22 hours just to get from New York to Washington, DC.

6:04 - Castellanos already deducted a point from McCain and he hasn’t said anything yet! What the hell is going on here??? I mean, I don’t plan on voting for the guy but what could he have done even before this thing begins?

6:05 - Obama starts out talking about Main St. Stresses oversight on Wall St. This is the first of what I assume will be many sticks on McCain about those greasy corporate loopholes.

6:08 - McCain’s first words are to let us know Ted Kennedy is in the hospital - thanks for the downer! McCain cracks lame joke about his age - self-depricating humor doesn’t work when it’s true.

6:09 - McCain speaking in generalities. This will probably be a theme.

6:10 - Lehrer is annoyed that no one answered the question: do you support the bailout? Allow me to answer as if you were asking me, Jim: “no”.

6:11 - McCain says “a lot of people saw this trainwreck coming.” Apparently not you John since you said the fundamentals of the economy were strong just last Monday.

6:12 - Obama sticks it to McCain and says we need to stop helping Wall St. and start helping Main St. I have a feeling I’m going to get sick of hearing this from Barack.

6:13 - Lehrer tells Obama to speak directly to McCain - McCain jokes “do you think i can’t hear him?” John made me smile...ahhh, that probably won’t happen again.

6:14 - McCain is optimistic about America’s strength as an importer/exporter. What do we export again? Well, ya know, besides debt and arrogance.

6:15 - McCain says spending is out of control - says “Republicans came to Washington to change it but it changed the republicans”. I must not have been alive yet.

6:16 - McCain starts his rant against earmarks by citing a 3 million dollar plan to research bears in Montana. Apparently the senator doesn’t watch The Colbert Report or he’d know that bears are godless killing machines and are the number one threat to America. I fully support that earmark.

6:17 - Obama lets everyone know that McCain’s tax plan would only help the super rich while his plan lowers taxes on 95% of Americans. This is where McCain should counter with a bullshit alert (providing that claim is untrue)...he does not.

6:19 - McCain is a sheriff apparently. Splendid.

6:20 - Obama interrupts and corrects McCain on his tax plan with specific examples of who would get their taxes cut and who wouldn’t...again. How many times is he going to have to explain this?

6:21 - McCain refuses to talk directly to Obama. Now he’s talking about his business tax and how lower business taxes equal more jobs. Uh, no? That just gives businesses more opportunity to make a profit. That doesn’t necessarily mean more jobs. I wonder if regular Americans get that.

6:23 - Obama speaks directly into the camera about who will get tax cuts and tools on McCain’s business tax idea some more. I can’t wait till the economic themed debate - I’ve already heard all their talking points!

6:25 - McCain is now making things up about Obama’s tax plan (which is weird since Barack’s already stated specifics about his plan). Obama sticks it to McCain on his oil company ties and the tax breaks he’s given them. McCain has no response to this except to laugh nervously. Wow, that’s creepy.

6:28 - Obama talks about how he wants to invest in new alternative energy even after the economy forces the government to cut spending. Even talks about structural specifics that really nails home the fact that he knows what he’s talking about. This is the thing McCain has yet to do regardless of whether you like him or not - he’s given no specifics about any of his plans for anything.

6:29 - McCain says Obama has the most liberal voting record in the senate - at least he has a voting record.

6:31 - McCain “fixed and then killed a bill” that would have solidified, to him, a bad deal between DOD and Boeing. Fixed...and then killed; I think he just blew my mind.

6:32 - Obama replies to McCain’s claim of being the most liberal: “that’s just me voting against everything George Bush wanted.” Touche salesman, touche.

6:33 - McCain wants to freeze all spending except for military/defense and veteran’s funding. Obama quickly interrupts with “that makes no sense - how about education for young children, we can’t cut that?” He lists two or three other examples but I can’t type and remember that fast simultaneously.

6:38 - McCain apparently doesn’t like spending because it’s all he’s talking about. Probably should tell his wife that - I heard she has 13 cars and a $300,000 outfit! (That was a joke - I don’t care what his whore wife does.)

6:39 - Obama says “John, it’s your president who’s had an orgy of spending that you’ve supported 90% of the time.” That’s a point for the Blue Barracudas - what’s next Ole Mec?

6:40 - McCain drops the “Miss Congeniality” line again. Really, John? It’s getting tired. McCain cites no examples and calls himself a maverick and even calls Sarah Palin a maverick. In an unrelated story, I am a firefighter.

6:42 - McCain really driving home the point that the surge has worked and that we will win. He keeps stressing “victory”. If he were Giuliani right now we’d be celebrating the 100th use of the phrase “9/11” at this point in the debate by now.

6:43 - Obama responds with “the surge isn’t the issue, we shouldn’t have left Afghanistan and gone into Iraq in the first place.” I have no joke for that; it’s painfully true.

6:44 - McCains says the decision of the next president isn’t to worry about the fact that they went into Iraq initially. But they will have to figure out how to fix what McCain’s party screwed up.

6:46 - Obama stresses Biden knows a ton about foreign policy to try and shore up his own foreign policy credentials. “John you like to talk about the war starting in 2007 with the surge - it started in 2003. You were wrong about a ton of things.” I think John McCain just gave me the Eli Manning Face (if you don’t watch football I apologize for that one).

6:47 - McCain says Obama doesn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy. But McCain sure knows the difference between a tactic and a stunt. Glad you could join us in Oxford!

6:49 - Obama is annoyed that McCain is distorting his votes and corrects him on the specifics of a troop funding bill that would have tricked Americans into thinking Obama didn’t want to send money to the troops. This is how politics work - you tell Americans that your opponent didn’t vote for a bill that would do good except you don’t tell them the reason they voted against it was because your side attached an amendment that would have screwed the whole operation or helped you profit in some sick way.

6:51 - McCain says Obama would have taken the troops out before the surge started working. As much as the surge has worked in Iraq it’s also helped to indirectly destabalize Afghanistan and strengthen Iran’s resolve.

6:54 - Obama talks about giving Pakistan no more free rides and basically says we can’t let them sit idly by anymore. Eff you Pakistan, we’re going into your western mountains and effing shit up.

6:55 - McCain admits a mistake in screwing the pooch on Afghanistan. McCain is not prepared to threaten Pakistan (read: I’m a huge pussy). McCain actually makes a good point that more troops aren’t the only solution - that we need a new strategy in Afghanistan/Pakistan to get bin Laden. If I were scoring this debate like the six CNN pundits I’d give McCain his first positive point.

6:57 - Obama with a solid comeback correcting McCain - “if we have bin Laden and al Qaeda in our sites we have to take them out. But I didn’t say I just want to attack Iran. But coming from someone who sings songs joking about bombing Iran, that’s not very credible.” Obama says we coddled Musharraf (and we did) and thusly we screwed ourselves in Pakistan. More Eli Manning Faces from McCain.

6:59 - McCain wants to take us on a history lesson by stating that he voted against Reagan about Iran in the early 1980s. Then says he supported the Gulf War and going into Kosovo and Bosnia. I didn’t know anyone opposed support for those last 3 wars and their human rights violations...

7:01 - McCain tells us a story about how he’s wearing a soldier’s bracelet and the soldier’s mother apparently told him not to let her son die in vain. Now he’s droning on about his war experience. bla bla bla. He’s very focused on the idea of winning an abstract war. This isn’t like Charlie, John. By the way, why were you a POW in the first place? Oh yea, because you suck at flying airplanes and arrogantly flied too far into enemy space and got shot down (the last of your five plane crashes). Slow golf clap, anyone?

7:02 - Obama: “I’ve got a bracelet too!” Barack, you don’t need to try and one-up McCain on the “who do dead soldiers’ parents love more” tip. Obama redeems himself with: “no US soldier ever dies in vain because they are carried out the mission their leaders gave them. The question is are we making good judgments?” Gets back to the point that leaving Afghanistan was the biggest problem. I think he’s trying to tell us that leaving Afghanistan to fight in Iraq was a mistake.

7:04 - McCain “I’ve traveled places!” John wants us to know he has a passport. His running mate....ooo, just barely.

7:05 - McCain drops the “we don’t want another Holocaust” line. Really, John? Wow, what a revelation.

7:08 - Obama says the biggest thing that has helped Iran grow is the Iraq war! I feel like we’re talking in circles now which is strange because it feels like we’re talking in circles and I wish I didn’t have the feeling that we were talking in circles.

7:10 - McCain can’t pronounce Mamoud Ahmadinejad’s name...consistently. says that Obama wants to talk to enemy leaders without preconditions.

7:11 - Obama says Ahmadinejad isn’t the most important person in Iran (I don’t get that). Saying McCain’s own advisors agree with Obama’s idea for preperations before meeting with enemy leaders. says his idea of meeting with enemy leaders isn’t like inviting them over “for a cup of tea”. McCain is mischaracterizing his position on this. Obama cites examples when diplomacy has worked.

7:15 - McCain corrects Obama on Kissinger agreeing with Obama’s position on meeting with enemy leaders.

7:17 - McCain cracks joke about meeting with Ahmadinejad: “oh no you won’t wipe Israel off the planet”. Funny joke but it’s a lie about what Obama meant about meeting with enemy leaders. Fortunately for McCain it came off as a good point for him. I’ll give him a point because I’m starting to feel sorry for him.

7:20 - Obama “you don’t deal with Russia by staring into Putin’s eyes and seeing his soul” Good dig on Bush’s policies. Hey, did you hear that McCain has supported Bush over 90% of the time? That means that McCain just got burned by Obama by association!

7:21 - McCain looked into Putin’s eyes and saw a “K-G-B”. Good line as well as talking about Russia’s corrupt economy and bank on petrol-dollars. However I’m not sure anyone didn’t think Putin wasn’t a part of the KGB.

7:26 - Obama says McCain has voted 23 times against alternative fuels. I think on-the-fence hippies just made up their mind.

7:27 - McCain says the opposite and claims off-shore drilling is a short-term problem for gas prices. That’s funny because we won’t see that oil for 10 years.

7:28 - McCain says we are safer now than just after 9/11. Why don’t you ask Americans if they feel safer; not sure they’d agree with you on that one regardless of what you know.

7:30 - Obama thinks we are safer in some ways but not completely. We haven’t fixed problems with ports. This is a huge point. Doesn’t think we’re spending enough money on nuclear proliferation. The ports thing is big - the idea that all those crates are coming into the country unchecked everyday scares the crap outta me. I’ve seen the second season of The Wire. That shit is crazy.

7:32 - Obama really knocking home the point that the current administration has botched spending money on a war we shouldn’t be in while help at home isn’t there. Ron Paul’s been saying this for a long time now. That old gyno comes off a little crazy sometimes but he makes sense on this issue at least.

7:33 - McCain just said Obama as stubborn as Bush. Are you serious? I think I just crapped my pants. McCain says he doesn’t need any on-the-day training. However he will require adult diaper training.

7:34 - Obama says no one around the world looks at America the same as they used to in that positive light that America is the beacon of hope in the world. It’s funny how an honest and true statement like that will get spun by Republicans to be un-Patriotic. Sorry we all don’t live in a fantasy camp with gumdrop clouds and chocolate syrup rain.

7:35 - McCain brings up his own POW story yet again. Serving your country is admirable but it does not give you credentials to be president.

7:36 - It’s over - Obama tells McCain he did a good job. Both shake hands with Jim Lehrer and meet with their wives. Obama asks Michelle, “how we doin?” I’m not sure but I think her response was “I’m wet.” I guess she thought he did well.

As an aside...

Final CNN tally:

Begala - McCain 0 Obama 9
Bennett - McCain 4 Obama 2
Borger - McCain -2 Obama 5
Brazile - McCain 1 Obama 4
Castellanos - McCain 9 Obama 11
King - McCain 7 Obama 5

McCain 19 Obama 35


That’s all she wrote. See you later in the week for the vice presidential debate running diary. I’m going to bring an extra pair of underpants as I’m prepared to piss myself laughing at Sarah Palin’s stammering incoherent responses. Until then...