Obama, McCain, and Kissinger

In a surprising turn of events, I wasn't bored by the first presidential debate.

I actually considered it worthwhile watching John McCain and Barack Obama talk for 90 minutes. It wasn't a waste of time.

Not surprising at all is the spin that follows the debate.

From the New York Times:

From the economy to foreign affairs to the way they carried themselves on stage, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama offered a dramatic contrast to the nation in their first presidential debate on Friday night, mixing disdain and often caustic remarks as they set out sharply different views of how they would manage the country and confront America’s adversaries abroad.

Despite repeated prodding, Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama refused to point to any major adjustments they would need to make to their governing agendas — like scaling back promised tax reductions or spending programs — to accommodate what both men said could be very tough economic times for the next president.

For the first 40 minutes, Mr. Obama repeatedly sought to link Mr. McCain to President Bush, and suggested that it was policies of excessive deregulation that led to the financial crisis and mounting economic problems the nation faces now.

"We also have to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain — the theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most and somehow prosperity will trickle down,” Mr. Obama said. “It hasn’t worked and I think that the fundamentals of the economy have to be measured by whether or not the middle class is getting a fair shake.”

Mr. McCain became more animated during the second part of the debate, when it shifted to the advertised topic: foreign policy and national security. The two men offered strong and fundamentally different arguments about the wisdom of going to war against Iraq — which Mr. McCain supported and Mr. Obama opposed — as well as how to deal with Iran.

More than anything, Mr. McCain seemed intent on presenting Mr. Obama as green and inexperienced, a risky choice during a difficult time. Again and again, sounding almost like a professor talking down to a new student, he talked about having to explain foreign policy to Mr. Obama and repeatedly invoked his 30 years of history on national security (even though Mr. McCain, in the kind of misstep that no doubt would have been used by Republicans against Mr. Obama, mangled the name of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and he stumbled over the name of Pakistan’s newly inaugurated president, calling him “Qadari.” His name is actually Asif Ali Zardari.).

“I don’t think I need any on-the-job training,” Mr. McCain said in the closing moments of the debate. “I’m ready to go at it right now.”

But Mr. Obama seemed calm and in control and seemed to hold his own on foreign policy, the subject on which Mr. McCain was assumed to hold a natural advantage. Mr. Obama talked in detail about foreign countries and their leaders, as if trying to assure the audience that he could hold his own on the world stage. He raised his own questions about Mr. McCain’s judgment in supporting the Iraq war.

...The differences were in no small part stylistic and visible with a glance to the stage: a youthful 47-year-old young black man who has been in the Senate for three years standing on one lectern, facing a 71-year old white-haired fixture of the Senate standing across from him. In many ways, Mr. Obama was a very different candidate than he was during the primary battles. He answered questions directly and affirmatively, typically looking right into the camera as he spoke.

Throughout the debate, Mr. Obama called Mr. McCain by his first name; Mr. McCain did not. The direct engagement was encouraged by the moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS, who declared, “I’m just determined to get you all to talk to each other,” though it was an invitation that the two men repeatedly ignored.

Mr. McCain was feisty and aggressive but, particularly during the start of the debate, his language and demeanor offered a reminder of just how much he was a creature of the United States Senate, as he used phrases that were no doubt understandable in Washington but might have been lost to the audience at home. He spent much of the first 20 minutes of the debate criticizing Mr. Obama for supporting earmarks, special projects sought by members for their district. “The United States Senate will take up a continuing resolution tomorrow or the next day — sometime next week — with 2,000 — 2,000 — look at them, my friends,” he said. “Look at ’em. You’ll be appalled. And Senator Obama is a recent convert, after requesting $932 million worth of pork-barrel spending projects.

...If Mr. Obama came into the debate seeking to link the economic crisis to Mr. McCain and to Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain sought to portray his rival as a naïve interloper; he barely looked at him all night, and seven times used a variation of the phrase that Mr. Obama “doesn’t understand.”

“I’m afraid Senator Obama doesn’t understand” and “What Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand” and “Senator Obama still doesn’t understand” were Mr. McCain’s constant refrains, delivered with a frozen smile and a hint of condescension.

Now, this is supposed to be a hard news report.

It reads like a love letter to Obama, defending him against the creepy, angry, condescending McCain.

Naturally. It was written by Michael Cooper and Elisabeth Bumiller.

Are they really so blind to their bias at the New York Times?

Have they just stopped caring?

They don't mention how McCain had Obama on his heels. They don't say how frequently Obama was smirking and shaking his head and mumbling to himself and interrupting McCain, while McCain was far more controlled, and didn't rudely talk over Obama.

No. Cooper and Bumiller highlight McCain's slight fumbling of names, but they don't mention a word about the way Obama lectured McCain and completely screwed up Henry Kissinger's stance on holding talks with to Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It was a significant moment in the debate.

Transcript

OBAMA: Senator McCain mentioned Henry Kissinger, who's one of his advisers, who, along with five recent secretaries of state, just said that we should meet with Iran -- guess what -- without precondition. This is one of your own advisers.

Now, understand what this means "without preconditions." It doesn't mean that you invite them over for tea one day. What it means is that we don't do what we've been doing, which is to say, "Until you agree to do exactly what we say, we won't have direct contacts with you."

There's a difference between preconditions and preparation. Of course we've got to do preparations, starting with low-level diplomatic talks, and it may not work, because Iran is a rogue regime.

But I will point out that I was called naive when I suggested that we need to look at exploring contacts with Iran. And you know what? President Bush recently sent a senior ambassador, Bill Burns, to participate in talks with the Europeans around the issue of nuclear weapons.

Again, it may not work, but if it doesn't work, then we have strengthened our ability to form alliances to impose the tough sanctions that Senator McCain just mentioned.

...And -- and I just -- so I just have to make this general point that the Bush administration, some of Senator McCain's own advisers all think this is important, and Senator McCain appears resistant.

He even said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he -- you know, he wasn't sure whether they were aligned with us. I mean, Spain? Spain is a NATO ally.

MCCAIN: Of course.

OBAMA: If we can't meet with our friends, I don't know how we're going to lead the world in terms of dealing with critical issues like terrorism.

MCCAIN: I'm not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I'm president of the United States. I don't even have a seal yet.

Look, Dr. Kissinger did not say that he would approve of face-to- face meetings between the president of the United States and the president -- and Ahmadinejad. He did not say that.

OBAMA: Of course not.

MCCAIN: He said that there could be secretary-level and lower level meetings. I've always encouraged them. The Iranians have met with Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad.

What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a "stinking corpse," and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments.

This is dangerous. It isn't just naive; it's dangerous. And so we just have a fundamental difference of opinion.

As far as North Korea is concerned, our secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went to North Korea. By the way, North Korea, most repressive and brutal regime probably on Earth. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag.

We don't know what the status of the dear leader's health is today, but we know this, that the North Koreans have broken every agreement that they've entered into.

And we ought to go back to a little bit of Ronald Reagan's "trust, but verify," and certainly not sit down across the table from -- without precondition, as Senator Obama said he did twice, I mean, it's just dangerous.

OBAMA: Look, I mean, Senator McCain keeps on using this example that suddenly the president would just meet with somebody without doing any preparation, without having low-level talks. Nobody's been talking about that, and Senator McCain knows it. This is a mischaracterization of my position.

When we talk about preconditions -- and Henry Kissinger did say we should have contacts without preconditions -- the idea is that we do not expect to solve every problem before we initiate talks.

And, you know, the Bush administration has come to recognize that it hasn't worked, this notion that we are simply silent when it comes to our enemies. And the notion that we would sit with Ahmadinejad and not say anything while he's spewing his nonsense and his vile comments is ridiculous. Nobody is even talking about that.

MCCAIN: So let me get this right. We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says, "We're going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth," and we say, "No, you're not"? Oh, please.

OBAMA: No, let me tell...

(CROSSTALK)

MCCAIN: By the way, my friend, Dr. Kissinger, who's been my friend for 35 years, would be interested to hear this conversation and Senator Obama's depiction of his -- of his positions on the issue. I've known him for 35 years.

OBAMA: We will take a look.

MCCAIN: And I guarantee you he would not -- he would not say that presidential top level.

OBAMA: Nobody's talking about that.

Obviously, one of Obama's 300+ foreign policy advisers gave him some bad information.

Obama should have let it go, but he insisted that he was right and McCain didn't know what he was talking about.

Big mistake.

Obama said, "We will take a look."

Obama can consider it done.

Fact Check: Kissinger Defends McCain's Iran Stance

ABC News' Kirit Radia Reports: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger came to the defense of longtime friend Sen. John McCain following Friday's presidential debate saying he "would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level."

"Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality," Kissinger said in statement issued by the McCain campaign.

Expect Obama to say that Kissinger is wrong.

Obama thinks he's right. He's always right.

As McCain said, Obama was parsing words. It's easy to be right when parsing words.
__________________

I liked this exchange:

OBAMA: ...But we have to have a president who is clear that you don't deal with Russia based on staring into his eyes and seeing his soul. You deal with Russia based on, what are your -- what are the national security interests of the United States of America?

And we have to recognize that the way they've been behaving lately demands a sharp response from the international community and our allies.

LEHRER: Two minutes on Russia, Senator McCain.

MCCAIN: Well, I was interested in Senator Obama's reaction to the Russian aggression against Georgia. His first statement was, "Both sides ought to show restraint."

Again, a little bit of naivete there. He doesn't understand that Russia committed serious aggression against Georgia. And Russia has now become a nation fueled by petro-dollars that is basically a KGB apparatchik-run government.

I looked into Mr. Putin's eyes, and I saw three letters, a "K," a "G," and a "B." And their aggression in Georgia is not acceptable behavior.

That's good.

It's straight talk, plus McCain draws another distinction between himself and President Bush.

Very good.

This was funny:

OBAMA: I -- I just have to correct the record here. I have never said that I object to nuclear waste.

This was a great moment for McCain:

MCCAIN: Jim, when I came home from prison, I saw our veterans being very badly treated, and it made me sad. And I embarked on an effort to resolve the POW-MIA issue, which we did in a bipartisan fashion, and then I worked on normalization of relations between our two countries so that our veterans could come all the way home.

I guarantee you, as president of the United States, I know how to heal the wounds of war, I know how to deal with our adversaries, and I know how to deal with our friends.