He really can pull out a broad smile, can't he?

That's . . . That's not a smile you can believe in.

God that smile is creeping me out. Why do they keep cutting back to it? Stop, please stop!

I'm imagining him making that smile during a diplomatic talk with an important world leader.

ooooo...I CAN'T wait to watch the Obama-McCain debates this summer...bring it on, old man! Highlights from this clip, all said in reference to McCain by commentators:

"[Not the best] SPUMP campainer" (commentator corrects himself - stump)

"I thought the green backdrop was pretty awful"

"He's an adult"

I'd actually be a tad bit concerned about Obama in debates. He's at his top when he's giving big, pre-scripted speeches in front of big crowds. He tends to stumble and seem a little bit unprepared in actual debates... and that was in debates with Democrats who all had basically the same platform.

I have no idea how he's going to be able to handle an open, rule-less debate where McCain (assuming he doesn't grin TOO much) starts asking tough questions about free trade, about Obama's comments about housing, about what exactly it is that Obama plans to do if he pulls troops out of Iraq and the country crumbles (I'd actually like to hear a lot of questions about his Iraq plan... they feel thin/glib to me).

These can be potentially difficult questions and while he hasn't tanked at answering such questions in the past, nor has he shown the eloquence and shine that make him stand out behind a speaker's podium.

This is not about explaining why his health plan will cover 5% more or fewer people, this will be about justifying and defending the underlying logic for a lot of his positions that haven't been fully or forcefully questioned in the debates thus far (again, because all the Democrats had vaguely comparable positions).

I'm curious how he's going to handle it.

I agree with you that Obama was not been the best debater in the primary (Clinton earned that title), but I actually think it was precisely *because* they were essentially debating minor policy differences, and when Obama gets into details he thinks carefully, speaks in spurts, and generally doesn't have the confident flow Clinton had.

But I think his debates with McCain will be *much* easier, because he'll be debating issues where they have a much bigger gap in beliefs, and I think Obama has been very good at justifying his broad platforms. And in fact I think it's McCain who has been particularly bad in debates about details, and I can imagine Obama calling him out on it on stage.

Regarding Iraq, I think the content on this page and the attached PDF are neither thin nor glib:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

Also, don't forget Obama was a law professor who used the Socratic method. I don't think thinking on his feet is a problem, his problem is being eloquent while doing it.

Also, I don't think the debates matter all that much. Let's say that Obama says some sort of gaffe that is pounced on by the Right WIng blogs. They will beat it into the ground and cry and gnash their teeth. And in the end, most Americans who saw the debate will love Obama. Because he is attractive. Because he is not old. Because he seems different and not like the same old same old. I think people underestimate how many people will just vote for Obama because he appeals to them. They will not even care what he says. There is zero passion from McCain supporters. ZERO. Obama supporters can't wait for the day they can vote for him. They will wake up on election day like it is Christmas morning. And that will be why McCain won't win. Not because of policy.

How does he plan to "take immediate steps to confront the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Iraq" while "withdrawing our troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year"?

1) I don't see any way to effectively confront a humanitarian disaster without people.

2) While not at all aware of the true situation on the ground in Iraq I doubt you'd be able to have people there without some sort of armed force to back them up.

3) For effective solutions the aid people need to be able to do their jobs without being bombed, so you actually need to dismantle whatever organizations are targeting the aid people. This seems like combat operations to me.

So unless Obama wants to play a semantics game (use private contractors, not troops. define the job as something that is not combat. etc.) I see a contradiction here.

Did you look at the PDF?

I think he's glib in that he's taken the mantle of the anti-war left, while refusing to promise that he'll have the troops out by the end of 2012. While I applaud his practicality on that front, I think it's unfair for him to be lauded as being anti-war (we have real anti-war candidates out there: Paul or Kucinich... more probably). While it's more his supporters' fault than his that he is perceived this way, it's something that he could correct but chooses not to.

Here's my question that, as far as I can tell, the PDF doesn't answer. Let's say we're halfway through the troop pulldown designed to prompt the Iraqi government to take more responsibility for the country (through sheer terror, I suppose), and there's a giant surge in violence. Does he continue the pulldown? Or does he put troops back on the ground? If he puts troops back on the ground, how long is he you willing to keep them there?

I have a hard time seeing him pull out in the face of major street violence... who wants that on their conscience? I don't think he's as anti-war as people think he is/want him to be but I think he encourages that perception. I find it irksome.

Not a deal breaker by any means, but irksome.

Nah, I was hoping you'd be able to summarize for me. If I get some time tonight I will.

Rumorsdaily: he has a very famous quote that should dispel any notion that he's an anti-war candidate like Kucinich:

"I don’t oppose all wars... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war."

That's from his incredible speech against the Iraq war in 2003, which is not only amazing for being right in a politically risky way, but also for being right in the very reasons he was against the war. (He basically predicted the aftermath on the nose.)

"Let's say we're halfway through the troop pulldown designed to prompt the Iraqi government to take more responsibility for the country (through sheer terror, I suppose), and there's a giant surge in violence. Does he continue the pulldown?"

It depends on the kind of violence, I imagine. Is it violence against Americans? In that case, we should consider the safety and speed in which the pullout is happening. Is it happening between militant factions? In that case, I doubt he would stop the pullout, and I would agree with that. Is it against civilians in a genocidal fashion? In that case, this line from the PDF applies: "He would reserve the right to intervene militarily, with our international partners, to suppress genocidal violence in Iraq."

Granted, he will need to respond to facts on the ground and show good judgment during a pullout, but are you expecting him to fictionalize scenarios on his web site and give his hypothetical response? That would be an exercise in futility: whatever happens during the inevitable pullout, the devil will be in the details. But the argument that we shouldn't pull out in fear of what could happen ignores what could happen if we stay in (which is much more predictable, based on the past 5 years, and it ain't good).

There's also the fact that a candidate like Obama who was against the war from the start will be more likely to get anti-war international community support to quell any genocidal or similar violence that could be the result of an American withdrawal.

I am frequently glad that it's not my job to solve this problem. It seems to be a question of choosing the least sucky option and bearing the brunt of the inevitable public backlash.

RD: Regardless of whether Obama is truly anti-war, I think it's safe to assume that he's less pro-war than McCain, and that's what we've got to choose from now. Please do not bring up R** P***.

or the fact that Obama may be the a***-c*****.

My irritation is that a wide swath of people seem to think he's anti-war (and when I say anti-war I mean anti THIS war) when, while he's certainly more anti-war than McCain, I don't think he's as committed to it as his backers are and I think he knows this and intentionally doesn't correct them.

Remember the disappointment among the left when, after the 2006 dem sweep in Congress, there was no support for a vote to defund the war? Those people who were angry about it then are the same people, in large proportion, that make up Obama's base. He's got the intelligentsia left and they're anti-war like, "hey, let's pull all the troops out tomorrow" anti-war. Obama's leading them on.

By the way, if it's sectarian violence and we can do something to quell it, I think we should be sticking around. I'm still in the 'you broke it, you bought it' camp.

"If it's sectarian violence and we can do something to quell it, I think we should be sticking around. I'm still in the 'you broke it, you bought it' camp."

There's been sectarian violence off-and-on for hundreds of years. We just triggered the last batch by offing a dictator. I don't see the need to stay around for a hundred years until the violence is quelled, and I also buy the argument that our presence is actually intensifying the sectarian violence. We should leave, and then pursue diplomatic solutions. Vietnam was mostly fine, give or take a few years, and we'd have more influence over Iraq diplomatically post-withdrawal than we ever did with Vietnam (since our opponents ended up taking over entirely).

Obama is not leading people on. He wants to immediately begin withdrawing as soon as he assumes the presidency, but he doesn't want to do it recklessly. I think people realize that. Can you provide any evidence that his supporters are misinformed about his proposals?

Considering how misinformed so many of his opponents are, I don't have all that much hope for his supporters. Most people are stupid, and yet you need the vote of most* people** to win. I doubt Obama can win unless some of the people who voted for GWB in 2004 now vote for Obama, and I hold the rational decision process of those people in very low regard. In fact, the whole idea of popular election of the head of state seems suspect.

* okay, a plurality
** okay, voters

Sure, Jon, but RumorsDaily has for some reason decided to point this issue out as a concern about Obama's candidacy. I'm trying to get at the root of his concern.

I'm more concerned, by the way, that people will support McCain under the mistaken impression that McCain has been a big critic of the Bush administration's handling of the war throughout since the beginning. The truth is that he didn't start criticizing it until the war's popularity went south.

I can provide no evidence that his supporters are mis-informed. I'll acknowledge that this is something of a hunch, based on the fact that, from the outside looking in, it appears that the same crowd that seems fairly virulently anti-war (anti-war TODAY) is also super pro-Obama.

If find that unsettling.

You know how some people find social moderates who support McCain unsettling because he's been pretty standardly anti-abortion? Same emotion I've got going with this.

Plus, I heard somewhere that Obama is the anti-christ. Just saying.

Well, I don't think Obama was the first choice candidate of the virulently anti-war crowd you are conjecturing about. At least in Nevada, those people tended to vote Kucinich first, and then Edwards, even though he voted for the war initially.

"You know how some people find social moderates who support McCain unsettling because he's been pretty standardly anti-abortion? Same emotion I've got going with this."

Those two situations are completely different. In one case, someone is unsettled because of the candidate's policy history, in the other, someone is unsettled because of a hunch of the candidate's *supporters*. That's different, and weird. Why do you care about the candidate's supporters? Don't you care more about the candidate? Would it bother you to vote libertarian knowing that some libertarians are virulent racists?

No, it's the same thing. Obama is just as anti-war (in the true anti-war sense) today as McCain is pro-choice. There's something weird about candidates garnering support from a crowd that seems to misunderstand their position, and the candidate doing nothing to dissuade them of their belief. I don't know if it's openly dishonest, but it is being intentionally misleading.

By the way, if I'm wrong and nobody thinks Obama is anti-war, then I apologize for this whole thing. It's not really a major objection (I've got bigger beefs with him on his speech references to the mortgage crisis and the general Pennsylvania-era rhetoric towards free trade).

Oh, and I do still think his Iraq plan is thin/glib/insincere, but we'll see if he really is able to pull out in 12 months. If so, at least he was being sincere and not not glib.

"By the way, if I'm wrong and nobody thinks Obama is anti-war"

Which I think you are (if you replace "nobody" with "few"). If you are basing it on an unsubstantiated hunch, how would you ever be convinced otherwise?

"Oh, and I do still think his Iraq plan is thin/glib/insincere"

You have little stated evidence of this as well. McCain and Obama have wildly divergent policies on the Iraq issue, yet you choose to focus on the sincerity of his policies rather than the quality of them. They are both politicians, you should question the sincerity of both equally, unless one has given reason to believe that they are untrustworthy in their stated policies. (And if you do, I can't see how McCain wouldn't be the guilty party when it comes to the Iraq war. Obama has been solid and consistent, if you are willing to grant that being against the war and voting for troop funding is not mutually exclusive.) And if you do measure the sincerity equally, then we should be debating their stated policies, not your hunches.

Paragraph 1: Unsubstantiated hunches cut both ways. You say I'm wrong, but go ahead and prove it!

Paragraph 2: Who's debating anything? I'm pointing out what I see as a flaw with Obama -- that I think he's being insincere on this point. If I'm correct, then that's a valid objection to him whether or not the same is also true of McCain. Why would McCain's insincerity have any bearing on whether or not Obama's potential insincerity is objectionable.

Here's my policy rundown as I see it right now (I'm certainly missing a few):

NASA: McCain wins (Obama wants to use it as a piggy bank)
Mortgage Stuff: McCain wins (by wanting to do nothing)
War: I have no idea what I actually want... so toss-up.
Civil Liberties: Obama wins
Health Care: I don't know what I want... toss-up.
Free Trade: McCain wins.
Oratorical Skill: Obama wins
Historicalness: Obama wins
Religion: McCain wins because I have no idea if he goes to church and if so, what church.
Non-War, Foreign Policy Attitude: Obama wins
Not Being Creepy: Obama wins
Not Being Super Old: Obama wins
Technology: Obama wins
Forced Community Labor: McCain wins

I'd be trying to prove a negative. I think the burden of proof is on you.

Again, why do you think Obama is being insincere?

"NASA" Obama doesn't want to use it as a piggy bank, he wants to delay the man-to-mars project by five years, and generally emphasize unmanned missions over manned ones. I agree with that tack, assuming I got this right.

"War: I have no idea what I actually want... so toss-up."

If you don't know what you want for the future, then how about you make your choice based on who originally had the right judgment in the past.

"Mortgage Stuff: McCain wins (by wanting to do nothing)"

Isn't doing nothing essentially what got us in the mess in the first place? Are you accepting the current mortgage crisis as an inevitable consequence of a free market?

"Religion: McCain wins because I have no idea if he goes to church and if so, what church."

Yet he pursues the endorsement of people like Hagee. This is one instance where your opinion seems to be informed based on what the media-at-large has decided to cover. (From what I know, McCain left one branch of Christianity for another -- I do not know the details and I really don't care. I do care, however, about Hagee.)

SPACE: Obama wants to take funds away from NASA to pay for college tuition. I'm not a fan of this plan. I would like more money for NASA, not less, regardless of whether it's going to a good cause or not. And yes, I want manned space exploration. You like your publicly funded art, I like my publicly funded manned space program. Kitty Hawk to the moon in 60 years is humanity's single greatest achievement, and I'd like to see that spirit continue as much as possible. Fund your college plan from some other source.

WAR: Because, assuming the right judgment in the past was "let's not go to war," that isn't necessarily linked to who will be better at handling the country once it's in a war. Is the question, who would have made a better choice five years ago, or who would make better choices today? I'm honestly all over the place on this one, which is why I'm calling it a neutral. I'd like to hear a lot more from McCain about what his long term goals are. (This might simply require more research on my part...)

RELIGION: I don't care at all about Hagee. He's a loon who McCain tried to get an endorsement from because, I guess, loons vote. It's certainly not a positive for McCain, but asking for endorsements is pretty much a moral neutral in my book, especially from people you don't know all that well, even if it turns out they're pretty awful in retrospect. I don't believe, and I doubt that you believe it either, that McCain thinks that the Pope and Hitler are the same person. If Obama asked for an endorsement from Stalin without realizing who he was, I'd give him some slack. I don't put much stock in connections between people who don't know each other well and only come together for the purpose of a mutual political benefit. It's poor planning, but it's not a mark against someone's character.

I've never seen McCain respond to a challenge by shouting "praise Jesus." I have, metaphorically, seen Obama do this. I didn't like it.

MORTGAGE: I have no problem with the current state of the housing market. It's presently self correcting just fine. No action is required. Besides, I don't really know what you do about people lying on their loan applications. (Ok, ok, I don't really think people lying on their applications was the bulk of the problem, but nor do I think it was shifty, lying bank loan officers... the problem is working itself out as we speak.)

"Working itself out" is quite a euphemism. A new homeless encampment sprung up in Reno several weeks, most of the residents of which are victims of foreclosures. From what I've heard, the inhabitants are unusually sober and tidy for a homeless encampment. But I guess we need them there to correct the market.

"Because, assuming the right judgment in the past was "let's not go to war," that isn't necessarily linked to who will be better at handling the country once it's in a war."

You're right, it's not. I was just saying if you can't decide about the future, at least look to the past.

Obama does have his Jesus moments, which is funny because 10% of Americans still think he's Muslim.

I'll concede the NASA thing, as I'm always for space exploration.

The homeless encampment is made up of people who can't pay for their rent, right? These were homeowners who owned their own homes, but then couldn't pay the mortgage (or rent) and are now out on the street? I don't understand how being offered mortgages they ultimately couldn't pay back would impact this? If they can't pay rent, they'd be homeless today with or without the housing crisis. That's a homeless/wage issue, not an improvidently granted mortgage issue.

Or are you saying that they're homeless because there's less work/capital because of the housing crisis? That's a more defensible position. I've got some thoughts on whether we're worse off for having the bubble and the collapse, or whether we would have been in the same place without the bubble, only sooner, but they're not really flushed out. Any opinions on that matter?

By the way, my concession on NASA: I doubt McCain actually cares anything about it. He made one statement about a man on Mars and that's it. But guess what, so did GWB. And yet...

Well, I assume the entered into variable mortgage rates that blew up in their face, and that they might've tried to keep up with them for longer than they should have, so in effect were paying 2-4 times the normal going rate for rent, until they could no longer keep up. But yeah, it's also the case that there's less work, especially, as you might imagine, in the not-so-small real estate field here in Nevada.

No, I don't think we'd be in the same place without the bubble, because irrational exuberance begets exacerbating conditions. While I don't think the government should hand-hold people in their financial decisions, I do think that: 1) Industries such as the mortgage and credit card industries need to be more regulated to provide large-print and readable rates and fees, to provide a range of values of your costs depending on possible interest rate changes, and to get rid of certain predatory lending practices; and 2) The government should have recognized its own influence and used the bully pulpit, as it were, to discourage subprime loans, as they now encourage military service, marriage, and eating healthily. The fact is that the bad decisions of individuals effects the country as a whole (and I think I got you to concede this point in an earlier thread, with respect to the regulations following the 1920's).

Hell, I'm all in favor of more information. More information forces the market to perform better through millions of small better decisions. If you want to regulate clearer posting of rates, that's fine. If that's what Obama wants to do, you've taken away one McCain point. Woot for information!

Woot!

Ok, I'm going to eat a sandwich.

I actually have no idea if Obama has proposed that, but it is considered regulation and is generally lobbied against by the industry. What Obama *has* done is shown that politics can be successful without depending directly on lobbyist donations.