My Take on the Debate

I actually heard the post debate discussion before watching the debate and heard a lot of people say that McCain won, Obama won and that they tied. After watching the debate re-run, I think a few things are very clear to anyone who has actually been following this entire campaign from the very beginning what seems like forever ago and even further back when Barack Obama gave his speech 4 years ago at John Kerry's convention.

The first part of the debate was basically left up to what your ideology is on economics. If you believe that government spends too much and needs to cut back on spending and wasteful earmarks as well as cutting the tax burden on individuals and businesses, then John McCain was the clear winner.

Barack Obama was the clear winner If you believe that it is the government's responsibility to provide tax payer health insurance for everyone, or that the government should be responsible for and should be paying for "early childhood education" rather than the parent taking that responsibility.

There was no real winner other than whom people perceived to be the winner on this one. There was a clear difference for voters though. John McCain believes in lessening the tax burden on Americans while cutting wasteful government spending. He has a record of doing just that and can back it up with achievements and sponsored bills.

Barack Obama has no record of doing anything he says he is going to do but he has proposed almost a trillion dollars of new spending on social programs that would greatly expand government involvement in almost every aspect of our lives while heavily taxing the very people that drive our economy and actually create jobs for Americans.

The foreign policy part of the debate had a very clear winner. Barack Obama has no clue what he is talking about and John McCain made that very apparent in each response to Obama's foolish naivety. He clearly rehearsed for this debate and spouted memorized talking points that often conflicted with his previous positions. He claimed tonight that he never suggested Presidential meetings with terrorist leaders without precondition but that is not true. He continues to fail in his recognition of the threat that Russian and China pose in suggesting that they would be our ally in preventing Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. Russia is actively assisting Iran in their quest to develop nuclear weapons. He also "misstated" his original position on the Russian/Georgian conflict by claiming that he initially condemned Russia's advancement into Georgia. In fact, he condemned both sides and said that they both needed to stop aggression. On his third try, he changed his position to that which John McCain had immediately stated.

Obama was also clueless on the history North Korea. The Clinton administration engaged in talk with NK and was assured that they were not seeking to develop nukes, all the while secretly developing them under our noses. This should be a clear indication that terrorist leaders lie when you talk to them but Obama wants to continue talking and asking Russia and China for backup.

The most disastrous portion of the debate for Obama came in the discussion of Iraq. He had no clue what General Petraeus said on the issue claiming that Afghanistan was the central front on the "War on Terror" though Petraeus has clearly stated that Iraq is the central front, a point that McCain made sure he pointed out. He also said that our troops performed greatly giving them credit for the success of the surge though just a few months ago gave all the credit to the Iraqi's. He passed off the presence of our troops as coincidental to the change of events and the decrease in attacks that took place in Iraq.

McCain took two opportunities to strongly go after Obama in order to expose how clueless he is on the security of our country. As a military man, he jumped on Obama for calling the surge a tactic rather than a strategy. His more damaging remark, and one of the few times that he looked annoyed and ticked off at Obama, came when he rhetorically asked if we would tell Iran, during meeting with no preconditions, "No you're not!" when they tell us that they are going to "Wipe Israel off the map."

There is no question who is better suited and ready for this job. The sad thing is that, while McCain clearly understands the economic and national security issues better, people will think Obama did a good job because he sounded good while giving his inconsistent rehearsed debate talking points.

Imagine an America where the leaders are Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. They would be the top four people running our country and the leaders of a party that are largely responsible for the mortgage crisis we are in. These morons helped create this mess and now they are the ones we are asking to fix it. My fear is that, while trying to pass a plan that helps the "poor victims" who purchased homes they had no business buying in order to create "fairness" in home ownership among low income and minorities, they will destroy our economy.

How in the world did these people get elected to lead our country?