The Final Word On The Final Presidential Debate: John McCain Is Still A Dick
Posted at 2:22 PM Oct 16, 2008
By Meredith Blake
According to virtually every pundit on the face of the earth—from John Dickerson to to the guy at the pizza place last week who told me, rather presciently, “One more debate and then-boom!-it’s ovah!”—last night was make it or break it for John McCain. Basically, Barack Obama had to stay awake for 90 minutes, not roll his eyes and avoid laughing audibly at the suggestion that Sarah Palin is qualified to be President. None of which is easy, and all of which he did with aplomb.
On the other hand (the one angrily clutching the Sharpee), McCain had a lot more riding on the debate, and a much trickier balancing act: He had to go after Obama, yet try to appear slightly less cranky and deranged than he has in the last two debates. He got it half right, so that means this was his most successful debate so far. Too bad he still managed to look mean and ancient in the process.
In lieu of an actual kitchen sink to throw at Obama, McCain called in a plumber for relief, a ploy for the middle class that thankfully most undecided voters saw through right away. No word yet on whether he is related to Joe Six-Pack.
Still, for about the first 30 minutes, it looked like McCain might somehow pull off a win. He was not only lucid but pointed in his attacks at Obama, but also managed to lob one relatively effective though surely scripted sound bite: “Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.” But it was pretty much downhill after that, as McCain quickly ran the Joe The Plumber thing into the ground, and then heaped a series of increasingly lame arguments at Obama for the following hour.
I'm still trying to decide which moment was the most pathetic and off-putting. First, McCain whined about Obama saying no to a series of town hall meetings. Then came McCain’s completely ludicrous assertion that since Obama hasn’t traveled to Colombia, he is unqualified to be President. Finally, McCain insinuated that “women’s health” is some kind of lame excuse--a la “the dog ate my homework” or “I am suspending my campaign in order to work on the economy”-- employed by loose women who are too lazy to get an abortion in their first term.
It was a real doozie. If McCain was trying to win over some female voters, this probably wasn’t the best tactic. (Or was it a strategy?)
For his part, Obama remained cool as a cucumber throughout the evening. Even when discussing the fatwas that McCain’s supporters have been gleefully issuing that past two weeks, Obama was calm as “a forest of redwoods,” to quote that dirty treehugger David Brooks. Another nimble moment came when Obama was asked about Palin’s qualifications to be VP. Wisely, he decided not to attack Palin (fish, barrel, etc), but he did successfully undermine McCain’s suggestion that Palin is qualified to be VP because she has a special needs child, and did so without looking like a total dick. Obama even had the cajones to bring up Bill Ayers before McCain could, effectively neutering this already lame and irrelevant attack.
Given McCain’s cranky and embarrassing debate performances, it’s hard to believe that McCain used to be a charming, likeable politician that a pinko liberal like me would have thought about voting for, at least in 2000. Maybe, as some have argued, he was just successful at playing the role of the affably grumpy elder statesman. Or maybe he’s just p-o’d because he thinks it’s his turn to be boss. No matter what the truth is, I sort of can’t help feeling sorry for the guy, especially when I see pictures like this.
Maybe it makes me a bad liberal if I sort of hope Obama throws him a bone with a cabinet position in his administration, but so be it.
