BrownDuck the Wise wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And that's the context that really matters. Obama was treating that debate like the objective was to convince people that his ideas were better. McCain was trying to convince voters that he is better...
By your assessment, I'd be "losing" the debate if I agreed with someone that the sky is blue, because at all costs, one should avoid agreeing with their opponent in a debate, regardless if the agreement is based upon obvious truth.
Missing the point I think. You don't disagree with things that are correct. You just don't make a point of naming your opponent and saying "<blank> is absolutely correct". You'd say something like: "Yes, of course the sky is blue, however <insert relevant point here>".
There's a difference between saying that a fact is correct and saying that your opponent is correct. The very closest you really want to get to the latter is to make a statement of agreement (ie: <blank> and I agree that ...). It's just really really bad debating practice to actually say that the other guy is right. Even when he is right. You acknowledge that the fact is correct. You don't actually say the other guy is right.
Yes. I know this is about the VP debate, but I couldn't help feeling a bit jarred when watching the Presidential debate. Obama is so good at wordsmithing when he's giving a speech, so it was very surprising to see him making what I consider to be "rookie mistakes" in a more free form format.
As to the VP debate? Honestly, the shorter and more constrained format will help Biden as much if not moreso than Palin. Biden has a really bad habit of meandering off topic and wandering into the bogs of his own odd ideas if he's given too much time to talk. If you've ever seen him in an open format discussion you know what I'm talking about. The guy is nice, but he's just a bit off his rocker. Not in a whacko crazy way, but in a "I have some very strange social/political ideas floating around in my head, but I usually keep them to myself" kind of way.
I doubt we'll see anything too surprising though.