Wednesday, October 15, 2008

This Should Have Been the First Debate   [Mark Steyn]

McCain was not great tonight, but he was good. And, if this had been the first debate, it would have been a great base on which to build through the second and third. I especially liked it when he drew attention to Obama's linguistic evasions - his commitment to "look into" offshore drilling, which is pol-talk for "never gonna happen". The Democrat nominee is very good at this - his mildly irksome linguistic tic, "Look - here's the thing", sounds like a declaration of "straight talk", while invariably prefacing some evasion or obfuscation.

I don't think McCain should have let Obama get away with the "Kill him!" accusation. It's a serious enough charge that the Republican should have demanded the right to set the record straight and explain that no one at his rallies has applied those words to Obama. Indeed, if the dissatisfactions with McCain expressed to me at the Palin rally in Laconia, NH today are anything to go by, there's a 60-40 probability that any cries of "Kill him!" at a GOP event are directed at our guy.

10/15 11:59 PMShare