Obama's open hand to McCain on torture made me cringe. I was rather hoping that Obama would run an ad in Florida saying that "McCain has already promised to pardon President George Bush, rather than put country first". With Bush polling at 18, that might just be the election in one ad.
Anyway, the question that both candidates handled extremely poorly was the one about whether the nation was likely to have another 9/11-type attack.
Obama failed to articulate a bold and new doctrine, a change that so many have been calling for. I'm talking about a change in mindset, a change in the understanding of all Americans, an escape from "fear" and from "terror" (and consequently from "overreaction", etc.).
Accordingly, the old motifs all came up and the same debate, on the terms that Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld laid out, wrongly, so long ago, now. There was no clear indictment of them and their politics of fear, and there ought to have been.
Runner-up: The fact that Henry Kissenger somehow is still part of our national dialog had me reaching for the rummy bag.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Worst Handled Question of the Night
