UPDATE: Obama is now running against Stephanopolis. The outrage on the left suggests that this will be a repeat of the George McGovern campaign. The major difference is that McGovern actually had a resume. The common theme is the candidate’s desire to surrender an American position and return to isolationism.
There is another kind of amusing aspect to the outrage. Where was all this high mindedness when Bush’s Texas ANG record was the subject ?
The lefty blogosphere went nuts over the debate questions last night. Shales is hopeless. He wants Obama to have adoring pseudo-questions like “How do you plan to solve all the world’s problems?”
No sooner was that said than Gibson brought up, yet again, the controversial ravings of the pastor at a church attended by Obama. “Charlie, I’ve discussed this,” he said, and indeed he has, ad infinitum. If he tried to avoid repeating himself when clarifying his position, the networks would accuse him of changing his story, or changing his tune, or some other baloney. This is precisely what has happened with widely reported comments that Obama made about working-class people “clinging” to religion and guns during these times of cynicism about their federal government.
Actually, he has said very little and each time he did mention the topic, he changed his answer. When you are in love, however, these things seem trivial.
Joe Klein, at Time was slightly better but not much.
But I was as dismayed with the second half of the debate–the “substantive” part–as I was with the first. The ABC moderators clearly didn’t spend much time thinking about creative substantive gambits. They asked banal, lapidary questions, rather than trying to break new ground. They asked the same old Iraq troop withdrawal question, rather than using the skillful interrogation Clinton and Obama deployed during the Petraeus hearings last week as a way to dig deeper toward the heart of the issue. (Question to Clinton: “Last week, General Petraeus said–in response to your question–that the U.S. military was going to support Prime Minister Maliki’s government in its assault against dissident Shi’ites, do you think that’s a wise move? And if not, why do you think Petraeus is moving in that direction?”)…and Charlie Gibson really needs a lesson in capital gains taxation–yes, the revenues go up (temporarily) when the rates come down, but only because traders hold onto the stocks in anticipation of the rate reduction so that they can gain higher profits. And there is an equity question here: should wealth be taxed at a lower rate than work?
Joe needs a lesson in capitalism but he would probably sleep through it.
Andrew Sullivan was, of course, hysterical as only he can be. On a TV program they both appeared on, Christopher Hitchens accused Sullivan of “wanting to have Obama’s child.”
Will Bunch, a Philadelphia Daily News writer, posted an open letter to Gibson and Stephanopoulos on his blog. He wrote that he was so angry that “it’s hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking.” He said the ABC newsmen spent too much time on trivial matters that didn’t concern most voters.
The best summary was, of course, from NRO.
Oh well. Who expects Democrats to know anything about economics anymore ?
Or national defense.
