Are you blogging from behind my couch?  That's precisely what I was shouting at the TV.  If he won't "telegraph" it to bin Laden, at least send it by telegraph, email (if he can figure it out) or a phone call to Bush.

McCain knows how to get Bin Laden. Just the same way he caught Ho Chi Minh and won Vietnam.

"...as I've acted responsibly throughout my military career" (John McCain).

Yeah right John, unfortunately the record says different.  John McCain is a liar.

Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator

www.latimes.com/.../la-na-aviator6-2008oct06,0,7633315.story

So, he knows how to get bin Laden, but not only hasn't he told anyone yet, but we're to believe he'd withhold that knowledge if Obama is elected?  He should write the bumpers for local evening news:  "Could a terrorist mastermind be living on your block?  We'll tell you at 11, only on Channel 8 Maverick News!"

McCain's whole line of reasoning here was hard to comprehend. He made it pretty clear that he would do the same as Obama said, but tried to make a big deal of the fact that Obama said it? Huh? This is academic hair-splitting, to use a tired stereotype.

"I have a secret plan to end the war"

One of the things that Obama has neatly done is to make any sudden OBL tape or similar kind of magical appearance less beneficial to the Republicans this time around, in contrast to 2004.  Now, if there's an October surprise with a Bin Ladn tape threatening this and that, it doesn't automatically benefit McCain as the f-p tough guy.  In fact, it may be rather ambiguous in its effects as Barack can easily say, "I told you this was important" and McCain is the one holding Iraq on his lap.

One of the things that Obama has neatly done is to make any sudden OBL tape or similar kind of magical appearance less beneficial to the Republicans this time around, in contrast to 2004.  Now, if there's an October surprise with a Bin Ladn tape threatening this and that, it doesn't automatically benefit McCain as the f-p tough guy.  In fact, it may be rather ambiguous in its effects as Barack can easily say, "I told you this was important" and McCain is the one holding Iraq on his lap.

I thought this was one of those moments where it became glaringly obvious that McCain is short on specifics regarding an issue he is supposed to know so well. He kept mentioning "rhetoric and record", but McCain's rhetoric was significantly short on details connecting his record to his superior qualification to be the POTUS that catches and kills bin Laden.

He did mention "Clear and Hold", but did a poor job of detailing the issue; I thought be bungled the explanation of how "Clear and Hold" would help Pakistan, and he seemed to forget the distinction between tactics with strategy in the process. I think part of the issue might be that I know that Waziristan is largely undeveloped, whereas Bagdad is a large, sprawling city, and therefore the Clear and Hold tactics used in Iraq aren't going to mean much in Pakistan. He seemed to muddy the line between military tactics and diplomatic strategy on this point, as well, in describing what was supposedly going to be diplomatic efforts as "Clear and Hold".

Has McCain always been this incomprehensible in regards to this stuff, or was he just really off of his game?

GSpinks, I've never seen any evidence that McCain actually knows what he's talking about on foreign policy. And why would he? He doesn't sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee, he's never held a foreign policy position in either the military or the executive branch, and what little private business experience he has by proxy with his wife's family is entirely domestic. In a few years on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Barack Obama actually has more foreign policy "experience" in the sense that one could count it on a resume than John McCain has. And it shows: McCain has held at least three conflicting basic foreign policy philosophies during his career in Washington.

The media has simply fallen for the facile myth that having served in the military, and being a Republican, grants a person "experience" in foreign policy. In McCain's case, it's just not true.

Now, John McCain is reasonably knowledgeable about military procurement. (He earned his chops as the Navy's top pork-procurer, famously securing funding for an aircraft carrier the Navy didn't even want, and now ranks on the Armed Services Committee.) If we were electing a quartermaster-in-chief, rather than a commander-in-chief, McCain would be our man.

Rhubs got it again - and dear old Wesley Clark had it right on POWPOW's "experience".  At least he'll have his "I told you so" moment in four weeks.

"I know how to get him": an outsider coming forward with a plan ("Step one, we hire people who can spy in Pakistan; step two, we establish a long-term infiltration program; step three, we ...") might well claim that he'd do things differently; merely asserting it when you have been in cahoots with the Administration over the last eight years is just plain silly.  What, he's been too much of a "maverick" to share his insights or to lead the capture of OBL the last eight year?  This campaign is descending into Vaudville; Johnny Mac as Bud Abbott, "Just let me at 'im, I know I can get 'im, honest, honest!"

The McCain plan for getting Bin Laden:

Phase One: Collect underpants.

Phase Three: Victory.

www.youtube.com/watch