Debate Reaction

If nothing else, I am taking great satisfaction in how disappointed David Gregory of MSNBC has got to be feeling. Gregory thinks that the Obama/Ayers “connection” is the most important thing in today’s news cycle. He hyped it endlessly on his show all day yesterday and claimed that McCain absolutely had to hit Obama with it during the debate. He gleefully predicted that the debate would be “bloody” because McCain would inject that subject repeatedly.

Well, so much for David Gregory.

Rachel Maddow, after the debate, observed that there is something particularly nasty about a campaign which is willing to make scurrilous accusations about an opponent everywhere except to the opponent’s face. I think she makes a very good point. Both McCain and Palin are making vile accusations about Obama and his associations, but when they stand in the man’s presence they are silent on those issues. I call that cowardice.

After the debate Chris Mathews and company were pretty much in stitches over some of the odder moments of the night, but the best moment for me accompanied the “green behind the ears” exchange. As Obama was talking about how he was the novice and McCain the sober and experienced one, McCain was happy as a clam, just too asleep at the switch to realize he was being set up and even interrupting (rudely) the say, “Thank you very much.” And then Obama whacks him in the kisser with, “And this is the man singing songs about bombing Iran,” and so forth.

I thought Obama hit just the right balance on which of McCain’s lies and exaggerations needed to be countered. Some are so egregious that he must refute them, but there are so many that if he tries to counter all of them he will bore and alienate the audience, and he knows that. You could sort of see him thinking things over and deciding that most of them were not worth countering, as they had been debunked so many times that the public already knows they are not true.

The one “idea” which McCain trotted out is one that the conservatives whom he is trying desperately to hang onto in his coalition absolutely hate. That’s the one where the government buys up the failing mortgages at the current amounts and reissues them at the current value of the houses. I hate that one too, but not for the same reason conservatives do.

The lender holds a $500K mortgage on a home worth $300K, so the government pays off that mortgage at the amount owed and reissues it at the lower amount. It looks a lot worse when there are numbers, doesn’t it? The lender just made $200,000 of what is known as “unjust enrichment” and the homeowner has just had an equal amount of debt forgiven. That $200,000 came from the taxpayer.

Right, it is our tax dollars that are “unjustly enriching” those lenders. It is our tax dollars being used to forgive the debt of those borrowers. In what world is it fair for those of us who have maintained responsible loans on our homes, to have our tax money used for those purposes?

In addition of $700 Billion used to bail out Wall Street.

After the debate we got to meet some “undecided voters.” After listening to them, my happiness at the polls showing Obama winning the debate vanished, because those polls came from undecided voters. Who cares what these morons think? None of these people could find their ass if you gave them a mirror on a stick. Chris Mathews asked if it bothered them when the candidate gave a speech instead of answering the question, and the “undecided voter” responded, “Yes, I think we should go get Osama bin Laden regardless of where he is hiding.” They are undecided because they don’t have a brain to decide with.

To hell with it. Obama won because I say he won.