M & O Slip Me a Mickey

Good god, this debate is soporific.

It's hard for me to judge what's going to come of this, but my prediction as an armchair gadfly is that this will swing in McCain's favor. He landed some hits -- the $932 million in supposed pork barrel, that went unanswered and not even indirectly refuted -- he got call himself a maverick and a reformer a couple times, and though it sounded scripted, and isn't, I believe, true, it sounded effective.

Obama actually raised his hand (or actually did that sort of "Waiter -- oh, waiter? Excuse me?" thing) at the beginning of the debate to try and get moderator Jim Lehrer to, well, moderate. He needed to come off as commanding and forceful (without, I suppose, coming off as a threatening black man, ), but he came off still as incredibly schoolmarmish. And actually, his answers were so bland and diffuse that I can't remember any specific thing he said (though the jist of it abides -- things like the fact that McCain was speaking of not "showing your hand" when speaking of attacking a country ("You don't say that aloud."), Obama pointed out that McCain had sang the infamous "Bomb bomb bomb Iran" song -- hit!).

Overall, though, they both bore me, neither said anything bold, both told some lies, and only McCain really had anything soundbite-like. Now, I don't believe in soundbites, but the actually legitimate need they may have arose from was from clarity. Both of them talked around and around and around issues so as to not to commit to anything. Lehrer couldn't even get them to say anything remotely resembling an answer about what they would do or change because of this crisis. ARRGH.

Oh, nice -- Obama just pointed out the McCain is chiding Obama for something his (McCain's) advisor, the war criminal Dr. Henry Kissinger, recently endorsed. But you know -- despite the cheesiness of canned quips and put-downs, this debate REALLY needed (well, needs) some pithy insults.

Oh, for god's sake -- this whole "talking to them legitimates them" thing. Ok, that's it. I'm out. I'm playing some video games.

Paging Dr. Madison...

"At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

Solidarity, on a belated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day note

Brought to my attention by J-friend Becky:

“It's one of the strangest things that all the great military geniuses of the world have talked about peace. The conquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, were akin in seeking a peaceful world order. If you will read Mein Kampf closely enough, you will discover that Hitler contended that everything he did in Germany was for peace. And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”

MLK Christmas Eve Sermon, 1967 .
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/12/276406.shtml

That about says it all.

Oooo... Good quote!

From today's Slate's Human Nature column (of which I'm a very begrudging fan):

Human Nature's view: The problem with libertarianism is that the first thing people do with freedom is take away the freedom of others.

(Human Nature is written by Bill Saletan.)

My other favorite quote for the day/week/month/year: Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment."