Didn't It Look Like McCain Was Acting?

Well, well, well, the debate happened after all. Like the Republican Convention, the suspension was suspended. Apparently, the only thing that actually was suspended was McCain's appearance on Late Night with David Letterman – which turned out to be political suicide. David Letterman did not take kindly to being stood up.

However, the McCain campaign suspension did give me a chance to pontificate on what would have happened at the debate. In my last blog entry I claimed that John McCain didn't have a chance in this debate with Barrack Obama. I pointed out that John McCain wouldn't be able to dodge the blame for the “bailout.” His policy of deregulation was just indefensible. And his participation in the Savings and Loan “bailout” back in the 1980's fit a pattern that made him look like he's been doing the bidding of fat cats for decades.

Apparently, Barrack Obama chose to take the high road though, and didn't bring up McCain's Keating 5 participation. It was irritating to know this while watching McCain accuse Obama of misusing earmarks, knowing that Obama's earmarks were not for pork (like say, Palin's bridge to nowhere).

On the other hand, if Obama were to have pointed out McCain's intimate and questionable involvement in the Savings and Loan “bailout,” Obama might have been seen as taking the low road also. That isn't a good option for him. We all know that an angry black man is seen as something totally different than an angry white man. Though the mass media doesn't cover it often, the race issue usually works against Obama.

Obama's strategists must have recommended he not attack McCain's not-so-reputable past. They must feel that although Obama would have won the argument, he would have tarnished his image as being more mature.

Although I wasn't happy with those tactics, I guess it worked. Most of the polls claim Obama won the debate.

However; there was one thing I did notice that was extraordinarily creepy. No, not so much that McCain kept trying to disassociate himself with Republican policy. I expected that. What was really creepy was that it seemed to me that John McCain was trying to imitate Ronald Reagan. I kept expecting him to say; “Well...”

What McCain did say, however, is that he would freeze spending on most everything except military spending. Now wait a minute. That's where all the real big-money pork barrel spending is going. It's been that way for decades. That's where we need to make the cuts. The military/industrial/fossil fuel complex has driven our nation to the edge of insolvency. But John McCain wants to leave that off the table. Sure, he claims to be against such things as cost plus/no bid contracts, but that's just the tip of the spending iceberg. John McCain wants to finance our unnecessary wars with even more cuts to domestic spending (that would obviously help our nations citizens and boost our legitimate economy). This man is not for the people.

Moreover, with the “bailout,” it is starting to look more and more like we won't be seeing all that much change no matter who wins the election. John McCain is essentially another George W. Bush. And Barrack Obama will end up with such a mess, there won't be money to fix anything. Either way, they're really not all that different.

Just what the disaster capitalists ordered.