The thing that strikes me most about Obama's debate performance Tuesday is how much his intentions for Afghanistan sound exactly like George W. Bush. But then when you hear the rest of his rhetoric about capturing or killing Osama Bin Ladin, you realize how little he cares for winning against the jihadi movement, and how little he has actually studied this problem.
Everything he says about pursuing Bin Ladin smacks of the old 'cut off the head and the snake will die' strategy. It's beyond wrong, it's foolish, especially given how he's just posing like a hawk on Pakistan. He is decidedly clumsy on matters of war, peace and diplomacy. The very nerve of him to call Musharraf a dictator on national TV is demonstration enough for me that his foreign policy would be a disaster.
It's about this time that I wish that Obama were debating Romney. Because even though Romney takes you right up to the limit of his knowledge, which is sometimes inadequate, at least he gets to the point quickly. Romney would have turned Obama into lawn clippings.
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I listened to the debate after much hesitation. I really didn't want to. As soon as I heard Brokaw's voice and the two minute rule, I immediately thought that it's nothing more than a game show. Finally I relented.
Obama said nothing new in anything he presented. All of his responses sounded exactly like things I've heard him say before, and he never seemed to have time to give quick, direct responses to Brokaw's questions. Plus, he violated time limits. Still at least he didn't bore me to tears like Biden did, and he kept his cheeky colloquialisms to a minimum unlike Palin.
For the things that matter most to me, McCain was a clear winner, but not decidedly so. He simply didn't have the rhetorical skills to put Obama away, who was punching like Mike Tyson against Buster Douglas. If Obama is supposed to have these legendary oratorical skills, I didn't hear them, He sounded like an average politician to me. Then again, I've been listening to him say empty stuff to cheers for months now, I didn't expect any big words tonight.
Obama unabashedly puts himself in the position of saying that the past 8 years has killed the American dream. It was a strikingly stupid remark. Anyway I've decided to do a full annotation of the debate. Stay tuned.
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