Why the Debate Wasn't but Should Have Been
Saturday, September 27, 2008 (17:31:08)

Posted by horatio

Well, the first Presidential debates are now over, and the outcome seems quit clear. Simply put, this was one of the most worthless debates I have ever seen, not to mention one of the most boring. Not only did both candidates put out numerous positions that make me more hostile to them, but they showed, at least by my standards, why neither of them is ready to be President.

This mockery of a debate looked more like a prep school sparring match with two fighters who don't know how to draw blood or hit a mark, than it did a top level elite political and intellectual debate. Jim Lehrer, the host, was also pathetic and a terrible moderator, never once pushing the candidates with hard questions or cornering redirects, as a good moderator needs to do at this level of debate. I kept thinking to myself, why isn't John Stewart or Ellen DeGeneres or Amy Goodman or somebody vaguely interesting and provocative moderating and forcing them to deal with real issues and not talking points.

So let me offer a few concrete examples of problems, and how they should have been addressed, in my view. And for the sake of my liberal friends, I'll argue as an Obama supporter and trying to make his position stronger (but for the record I don't support either candidate). Let me run through a few key areas that I think he needed to hit on, or respond to, that were totally missed and wasted.

--Venezuela
This was a huge negative for me when he called Venezuela a rogue regime, and reflects the exact 20th century mentality that both candidates were criticizing in relation to Russia and the Cold War. Venezuela is only a rogue regime if you define US interests in purely capitalist and hegemonic terms, and by using and supporting that frame, Obama showed he is exactly the same as McCain and no friend to the American Left or those interested in a stronger and more vibrant Latin America. Many in the American and international “Left” (I use that hesitantly, since the US “Left” is mostly non-existent) are largely supportive of Chavez and his efforts in Venezuela, as well as neighboring leftist movements in Latin America. Sure, it's not all candy and roses, but it's new and potentially transformative in its implications for future continental politics in the Americas, not to mention shifting power into a “multipolar” world, which we desperately need right now as a counterweight to US hegemony. For Obama to attack Chavez and Venezuela as a rogue nation only serves the interests of militarist neocon strategists in Washington who want to keep American in a war-first mode indefinitely.

--The War on Terrorism
This is one issue both candidates seem to miss the point on, and I think Obama could actually hurt McCain on if he was strategic with his points. Here's the take home message: no one will “win” the war on terrorism because you can't win a war that has no fixed enemy, no fixed resources, and no capital to conquer and control. In short, the best you can hope for is destabilizing the support base that allows the terrorist movements to continue to grow and thrive, thus minimizing their effects. You can go back in history thousands of years and find what would likely be called acts of terrorism by today's standards, and we will continue to see them as long as there are people alive on this planet. That's just reality. So if Obama really wanted to show his tactical/strategic knowledges and nuances, here's what he should be saying when they debate Iraq or Afghanistan or the larger War on Terrorism: “Look Jon, or Tom or Jim, whatever your name is, I think your comment about winning the war against terrorism is the exact problem. We're not going to win an asymmetrical conflict by waging a symmetrical war against an enemy that is dispersed and diffuse, and operates across the entire globe. It's just nonsense. Yet this logic of yours has allowed for the continued occupation of Iraq, the failures both there and in Afghanistan, and the continued rubric of fighting terrorism to the tune of billions of tax-payer dollars. And what have we got? An Iraq that is more unstable than it has been in the last century; an Afghanistan that is arguably worse than the height of the US-Russian proxy wars; an international insurgency that is far more powerful than it ever was before 2001; major human suffering and displacement in Iraq and Afghanistan; major human rights violations by both Coalition soldiers and armed insurgents. This is not how you win a war on terrorism John, this is how you make them.”

If Obama said something like that, I think millions of Americans (not to mention the world community) would jump out of their seats and start cheering and yelling Amen! Sure, McCain would respond that such a view is childish and dangerous (just as he did to Obama's militarist view of fighting the war on terror in the debate), would be tantamount to letting the terrorist win, and shows exactly why Obama is not fit to be the President/Commander in Chief. And here is where Obama could really hit him back hard.

“No John, I'm afraid it's you who just don't get it. Our reckless militarism over the last few decades is a central reason that many people hate this country, and is one of the central reasons that fighting more wars, occupying more countries, is making the problem worse not better. The time of US military domination has to end, and the return of American soft power, of global moral leadership not global policing, is on the horizon. If we truly want to make America, the world, safer, we must learn to put the stick down and remember how to extent our hands instead of our guns around the world. And frankly John, your from a generation that refuses to let go of that Cold War militarist mentality, and that's a major difference between us. You see force as the first option, not the last, and the American people, the world in fact, is tired of that approach because it isn't working, it hasn't worked. It must change, and that is exactly what I plan to do when I'm President of the United States.”

--The Economy
This was an area that I was especially disgusted with, because it really shows the class bias of both candidates, elite through and through. Seriously, we're looking at major financial collapse in this country, perhaps on the scale of the Great Depression or worse, the economy is in shambles, wages are dropping and costs are rising, and here are McCain and Obama debating cutting 18 million in por-barrel spending? And wen asked what they would change, they both said nothing at first, and Obama again and again. Sadly, this just confirms for me how out of touch these candidates are with the real American reality, the one that I see and live every day, where worrying about my economic stability is measured in the hundreds of dollars in my bank, not the millions in my investment portfolio. But if Obama were going to really try and hit McCain on this, he blew what I think was his biggest opening ever last night. When Jim Lehrer asked them for the third time how the fiscal crisis would impact their spending, and what they would do, McCain proposed freezing all spending except Defense. Here's his exact quote:

“How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs.”

Now if Obama were really on his game, he would have gutted McCain like a fat hog for that comment, perhaps saying something like this:

“I'm really appalled at that suggestion John. Freeze everything but Defense and entitlement spending? Right now we're spending over $600 billion alone in DoD and related areas, more than 20% of the entire 2008 budget, yet we're only spending about $60 billion, or 2% of the budget, on something as critical as American public education. To think that in a time like this, when the country is in a major financial crisis, caused in part by the massive costs in Iraq, that you want to freeze everything except the single most costly endeavor? A majority of the American public has shown it wants us out, and have pointed to the costs as a major factor for them, and now we're talking about how to deal with this very financial crisis and your solution is to continue the most expensive part of that problem? It makes no sense at all John, and the American people can clearly see that, and they want it stopped, want the money to stop flowing out like oil from a sinking ship, and yet you want to freeze everything but that. I think that really shows how out of touch you are with the American public, with the average American, to suggest that a solution to our financial crisis is to keep funding the DoD, a major source of the spiraling US debt. It's insane John, it really is. And I know exactly what you're response is, that this would hurt our troops, out them in danger, and will let the terrorists win, but I've already show how that logic is false, how we need to move out of that Cold War mentality.”

Something like that would, I think, really put McCain on the defensive and would force him to go back to his only real area of retreat, which would be to attack Obama for cutting funding to the troops and letting the terrorists win, which Obama has already preempted and essentially left McCain looking like that is all he can talk about, which is in fact largely true. It's either his maverick experience in Congress or his military credentials, that's what McCain always goes back to when he's unsure what to say. Just look at how much time McCain spent talking about the military in the debate, even though most of it had nothing to do with the actual issues. It was all feel good fluffy, hey look at my bracelet pandering. And Obama, and Lehrer, let him get away with it.

But the biggest problem is that neither of them gave any serious response to the economic problems, never acknowledged it was that serious, and showed no sign at all of having seriously thought out what it would mean to their presidency from a big picture perspective, which is really scary!

There are other areas I could go into, but that gives a sense of some areas that really need to be looked at closer by Obama, and which should have really driven this debate, at least in my mind, but it seems that either Obama just isn't there, or his party isn't there, I'm not sure which. Either way, it could have been a good chance for him to really go after McCain, and he didn't. And I think it will cost him.