My fever broke last night and I'm feeling somewhat ok without any drugs at the moment, so this is a good sign. My plan is to rest up today, then pack tomorrow and head to Nevada Wednesday.

So, now time to catch up on some politics.

The Presidential Debate!

I think the Debate was overall a tie, but McCain made several slip ups which make me lean toward an Obama win.

McCain flubbed Ahmadinejad's name a couple of times:



Another flub was he mispronounced the name of the Pakistan leader Zardari, instead calling him "Kadari"



Many people call it a tie, I can see where they are coming from. However, even a tie in this debate is a win for Obama in my opinion. Foreign Policy is supposed to be McCain's strong suit and it was assumed he would win this debate, so I think seeing Obama stand toe-to-toe with McCain and hold his own is essentially a win.

McCain's repeated response was "What Senator Obama doesn't understand is [insert topic] and I've been to [insert name of country]." However, Obama spoke on these topics and was both informed and eloquent. I think Obama DOES understand these things, but McCain is going to repeat "you don't understand" over and over and hope that people will remember it.


One of the good hits of the night was when Obama smacked McCain for his lack of diplomatic skills. McCain accused Obama of saying he would invade Pakistan:

McCain: I'm not prepared at this time to cut off aid to Pakistan. So I'm not prepared to threaten it, as Senator Obama apparently wants to do, as he has said that he would announce military strikes into Pakistan.

We've got to get the support of the people of -- of Pakistan. He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan.

Now, you don't do that. You don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.

This line hasn't been hit much in the media, but it shocked me when I heard it. "Sure, we had to do some stuff, but we don't have to actually TELL anyone we're going to do those things...." That's a frightening thing to hear from a President.

This was Obama's response and a great one, I think:


I've heard McCain singing "Bomb Bomb Iran" before, but I missed the extinction of North Korea. All of the search results reference the debate instead of the original event, so if anyone can find that and pass it along, I'd love it.

This is the "Bomb Iran" song:



I felt that most of the substance of the debate came from Obama. McCain's responses were often filled with alarmist buzzwords or empty attacks. Keith Olbermann, a liberal commentator on MSNBC, made a big deal of McCain's comment about torture. That he'll make sure we "never torture again" which implies that we already have. Olbermann seemed shocked that McCain would directly admit that the government had tortured people.... but is anyone really surprised? I thought that everyone already understood that our government has tortured people.

I think this is one of the greatest moments of the debate: