For those who thought McCain won the first debate...

This post is uncalled for Surfguy is hardly an Obamabot -- you've been around long enough to know better.

Your posts have been a bit of a joke since the election heated up anyway.

 

"What are we going to do, sit down with him? He'll say 'We are going to bomb Israel off the map.' and we'll say 'No you're not.' Please."

Pure gold.

 

pgabriel agrees with you, but I'm still flummoxed.

 

I've actually posted less.

 

McCain's experience just humiliated Obama regarding foreign policy. The only ones who could disagree with this are the Obama drones

 

I agree with both McCain and Obama on this, but thought the way McCain handled it was pretty unbecoming. Obama is right that sometimes you should have executive-level meetings without preconditions. (Say for example, if Iran was considered an immediate threat to an ally, and the President could get an audience with Ahmedinijad or Khamenei, they should meet.) McCain is also right that typically you want to get concessions before having executive-level meetings, and that secretary-level and ambassador-level meetings are preferable until those concessions are received.

I don't really think that either really disagree with either of these points. The distinctions are purely rhetorical.

 

I think a major and legitimate point of separation between the two is an issue of how to prioritize spending in the wake of a revenue shortage (as we will undoubtedly see in the future).

McCain said during the debate that he would prioritize over everything, 1. Defense, and 2. Veterans healthcare. The rest of the debate he seemed only to talk about how he would cut government spending on pork.

Obama seemed to mention his priorities as 1. saving money by getting out of Iraq, 2. infrastructure spending (roads, and power, and other commodities Houstonians did not have these past weeks), 3. healthcare, if not universal, then for as many people as possible, 4. funding to support cost-effective energy solutions in the forms of fuel-efficient cars and offshore drilling.

Although these issues do not necessarily have to be at odds, the way they were debating it made it seem like it. So if you put defense at a higher premium than the other issues--and to be fair McCain defended his reasoning by saying that we would have to go back in if we left now--then vote McCain. I feel pretty confident in saying that the military won't be getting any more blank checks with a Democrat in the White House.