Indeed. It certainly helped to have McCain's speech immediately follow Obama's. As Olbermann said, you can always speak before Obama, but never after. I think that's especially true in McCain's case. The contrast was literally absurd.

If your a democrat you have to love the Obama McCain match up. Can you imagine a debate between those two. Young vs Old, Tall vs Short, Well Dressed vs Schlumpy, Consistenly anti-Iraq vs Consistentenly pro-Iraq, Charisma vs Kinda Creepy. C'mon!

It didn't hurt that MSNBC has been running that footage of the two shaking hands on the senate floor today.

Narrative is king.

I hope Obama gets the chance to debate McCain. I imagine something like this will happen during the debate:

youtube.com/watch

VC: Are we taking bets on whether McCain's hip will shatter?

You guys are all overlooking the fact that there is something very "reassuring" about McCain... people like to be reassured by their leaders... especially older voters.

It's time to start thinking a bit harder about what McCain really represents. He would be the first President to have been a POW. He would be the first President to have come from a military family, not just someone who has had family members serve in the armed forces, but a MILITARY family. He has the temper and temperament of someone a third of his age. He is a real maverick, it's not a pose, he is known for an unpredictable and uncompromising style of leadership. He is not interested in no-bid contracts and feathering the nests of lobbyists and defense contractors - he is a warrior. He has little interest in the economy: His economic advisors are out of the GOP Washington establishment (Bush family cronies). He has scores to settle, with both parties. As Pat Buchanan has written, and he has been around Washington a long time and knows McCain well, he would be a "war president".

Now that he has the nomination sewn up, it's time for Americans to take a harder look at McCain.

It shouldn't be about age, about black vs. white, about liberal vs. conservative, about a battle between generations. It should be war vs. peace.

Welcome to 1968? I hope not.

There is absolutely nothing reassuring about McCain if you want peace in the Middle East.

a yummy taste of things to come:

www.youtube.com/watch

Make no mistake. McCain has an argument. So much of the opposition to our involvement in Iraq was motivated by a political disposition smelling an advantage rather than any profound conviction of right or wrong. In other words much of the opposition was/is locally provisional.

I look forward to this fight. I am an Obama supporter but this issue has yet to be fully vetted and happens to be a point of contention that I will happily engage. All the while reserving the right to argue contrary to conventional democratic party wisdom. Largely because the democratic party wisdom underlying the opposition has little authority of beyond leveraging a general dissatisfaction with the vagaries and vicissitudes of war. That our some of our 'pals' in the UN didn't participate isn't a good enough rationale for objection.

There were compelling reasons to interject as we did. Bush was wrong to sell the way he did. He should have been more honest in describing the potential difficulties involved and thereby given the American people a more realistic accounting by which to measure decision. That said I wonder what the ME would look like now with Saddam Hussein still in power. I would hazard a guess that it might well be a more dangerous world what with all of the jockeys playing their hands according to a continual catch 22. Paralysis is not a good disposition.

More later I'm sure. But let it be discussed beyond knee jerk assumptions. I'll welcome a more comprehensive exploration of our (US) position and responsibilities in the world. This is one of the benefits that I was hoping for when imagining a McCain-Obama campaign. It looks like this might well come to fruition. Let's not forget that time and zeitgeist is always a player.

Let our contemplations begin.

ps: Murtha can go blow.

The big problem with the left on the war is this: whether or not it was a good idea to start the war, the question now is if it's a good idea to stay.

Bomb, bomb, BOMB, bomb, bomb Iran.

"the question now is if it's a good idea to stay."

Aye. That IS the issue today. The shape of withdrawal has e relevance as well. We cannot control the other contenders in the region. They WILL have a say. This will be expressed through violence. That can be expected. How much influence can we realistically have in effecting the responses to this expected violence is the issue. It is possible to argue that a President Obama could allow a degree of face saving for the current power structure in Iraq and thus an assumption of a more proactive defense of their position than might otherwise be provided by a WASP president McCain. There isn't any guarantee that this would come about but...

I don't know. I am of the inclination to accede a degree of intellectual real estate to the temporal realities of skin color and religion. Personally it pisses me off to have to do so but then I'm not God. Unfortunately (or not) I do have limitations.

Anyway. We are just getting started on this whole discussion. It would seem that the current configuration of our political dynamics is friendly to a more honest exploration of what I see as some of our more disabling navel gazing preoccupations.

C'mon, Hillary didn't watch either Obama or McCain, she was too busy in that auditorium working the crowd. And also, neither McCain or Obama watched anyone elses speeches either.

But I have to believe someone in each respective campaign is tasked with keeping tabs with the other candidates, and I am sure Obama knows by now the particular shots about "platitudes" McCain tried to take last night.  

I agree. I give Obama a substantial advantage due to his ability to more fully inform his statements beyond the constraining dimensions of collective communications. He adds dimension to his beliefs with fairly comfortable facility. He is able to speak to the ether in pragmatic ways. Some would contend that 'ether' is delusional. I contend that its weight equals its apparent non substance. Thus very consequential. He certainly has the ability to get beyond platitudes thus transcending hope to possibility.

That said McCain is at his best when he puts away platitudes with little care for his own or others peripheral ambitions. If this matchup does occur there will be occasion for both to visit the best of what they can offer in the way of leadership and definition beyond those disabling platitudes.

I'm enough of a realist to allow that perhaps neither, due to the powers that be, will get to that place. But there is a chance..... One that would be quite unlikely if Hilary were to represent the counter argument. There are some things more important than winning at all costs. (one of the reasons I was disappointed with McCain's lying about Romney's position for the Florida primary.)

At any rate my hopes for a McCain-Obama led discussion look to have a decent chance of happening.

The next time I hear McCain say "my friends" in one of his boring speaches, I may punch the television.

"my friend(s)"  = southern/military-speak for "Hey, a**hole, LISTEN UP..."