McCain Wasn't in a Cone of SilenceFollow

I think Obama had better watch out or Hillary is going to steal the nomination.

Sure, little buddy. Make sure you watch the convention, something exciting may happen!

If you'd watched the thing

I did. You didn't.


It's a ridiculous claim, not because someone couldn't have cheated if they'd wanted to, but because the very "suspicious" question makes no sense if he had...

Sure, it's not like he was standing outside of an Aids clinic or something.

McCain had the questions in advance, there's no question. It's not provable, so it's meaningless. His camps denials are perfect, however, they set the bar high for McCain in actual debate where it'll be impossible for him to meet expectations. Good work guys. Win small gains in the August polling at the cost of votes in November. Ideal.

What saw didn't prove that McCain knew the questions ahead of time, but that he knew the answers ahead of time... He didn't need to know the questions. He could answer any of them right off the top of his head

Because he's such a good debater.

Hook, line, sinker. Boy you guys are easy.

McCain's experience gives him a huge debating advantage.

Oh, absolutely. Enormous, in fact. It'd be a miracle for Obama to do well in any of the debates.

I know you can't see it, but I'm making reeling motions over here.

You do get that the only reason the suggestion of cheating is even out there is because of how much blatantly better McCain performed than Obama, right?

Oh absolutely. McCain's a vastly better debater than Obama. If Obama wins any of the giant debates that will be watched by millions it'll be a giant upset.

It'll be as big as Regan doing well in debates in '80. It'll be exactly like that, come to think of it....

That's rich coming from the "change we can believe in" guy.

No, what's rich are McCain's ads running every fifteen second during the olympics about how he knows Washington is broken and will stand up to big oil. I laugh and laugh. I'm sure it works on a particular class of sucker and all, but it's still funny as hell.

"McCain knows it's broken, he broke it."

I disagree with the "simple" part of your sentence, but good enough.



Again. I disagree with the word "simple". He gave straightforward answers to what really were significant and complex questions. There's no "simple" answer to abortion or marriage or the war on terror. His answers may have appeared "simple", but only because he was able to easily answer the questions. That doesn't mean that the answer was simple though. It says much more about the person giving the answer not only understanding the issue, but having so much experience with it that he's already thought his answer through many many times.

It's like the difference between asking a grad student a question about his paper versus asking a 20 year professor the same thing. The grad student is going to fumble around, trying to figure out what answer will make him look like he understands the issue while avoiding giving an answer that will get him stuck defending a line of thought that'll get ripped apart by the questioners. The professor will just answer the question. He doesn't have to stop and think about it because he's discussed this very issue, hundreds of times with hundreds of other professors in the field and knows what all the counters are, how to avoid getting stuck by them, and how to defend his position.


That's the difference here. McCain makes it look "easy" because for him, it is. He's been dealing with these questions and issues for decades. Obama spends a lot of time thinking and rethinking exactly because for him, a lot of these issues are things he's never even thought about or discussed until just the last couple years of his life.



Sure. If it was a choice between two people with equal amounts of experience and one was blurting out the first thing that came to mind, and the other took his time to think out a good response, you'd be absolutely correct. But that's really not the case here. Obama doesn't know the correct answer. He's feeling his way through the questions. Because of this, he has a tendency to give very vague and broad answers that can be reinterpreted later if he needs to.

On the surface it may make his answers appear more thoughtful, but it's really about avoiding giving a definitive answer in many cases. He hasn't gone through the process of defending a position on many of these issues, so he has to make sure to give an answer that gives him enough wiggle room later.


And let's be real here. We're not talking about a run for a legislative position. They're running for president. Up until now Obama has had the luxury of being able to spend weeks or months coming up with a position on any given issue, testing the response, seeing how a position tracks, seeing how his supporters feel, etc. You can do that in Congress. You can't do that in the Oval Office. Part of being president is being able to make decisions quickly. The last thing you want from a President is someone giving out vague or broad commands.


In that position you absolutely want the guy who's got the "rehearsed" answer. Because in a crisis, you don't want the president trying to figure out what the right response to some situation should be. You want the guy who's already thought about what to do in that situation and is prepared. That's John McCain. It's *not* Barrack Obama.

Wow, that's the first time I've ever unrated somebody.

His answers weren't 10 words though Smash, so your argument fails.


However, many of his answers were shorter then Obama's. I just disagree that this means that his were "simple". They were more to the point. he said in 3 or 4 sentences enough to clearly state his position. Also, Obama's longer answers often failed to actually answer the question. Let me give one ringing example (the same "when does life begin" question in fact):




Look. I'm all for providing a complex answer to a complex question, but he completely avoided answering the question. He could have at least said something about the various theories of life. Even just a vague, "it's hard to say exactly when, but sometime between when the sperm reaches the egg and the baby is born" would have at least put us in the ballpark here...

I get that this is an uncomfortable issue for a Democrat. But usually that's because the person in question holds a position that he knows is unpopular in the public eye. If he were to be honest with the platform of the Dems, he'd have to say "at birth", and that would be a deal breaker for him and he knows it.

So he avoided the question. In a long winded manner, but avoided it nonetheless.





Sure. But only where a complex answer is really needed and actually helps to frame the issue at hand. Obama simply transformed the question into a different subject. He's comfortable talking about womens rights on this issue, and clearly uncomfortable even recognizing that an unborn child might have rights at all.


A good "complex" answer would have made a point about balancing the two. But he didn't do that. He dropped the question as quickly as possible and then spoke about women's rights as though there was no other moral consideration of importance. Then he invented a new platform position out of thin air. Wow. Magical... No one bought it then either. ;)


Oh yeah. And then he slammed Bush. Lol. Attacking a Republican because of the abortion rates? Is this another "We're going to blame you for failing to prevent us from doing something you don't like" argument? Cause that one's always good for a laugh...

Edited, Aug 18th 2008 7:48pm by gbaji

I'm not asking anyone to change the definition Smash, just to not assume that Mcains answer is automatically "simple" just because it's shorter than Obama's.

I'd say he answered honestly and with humility. He admitted that he didn't know enough about it or have an informed opinion. I don't think "too complicated, I'm not going there" is a bad answer even if the media would like candidates positions to be entirely summarised in 5 second clips. Life isn't simple and politicians don't know everything. Admitting that indicates a pretty straightforward approach. :p