I'm with you Rotwang -- I don't believe the twaddle either. But maybe Obama can think through things and implement it well. I'm not eager for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, if that is indeed what they're doing, but I don't think it''s imperative that they be stopped either. I do think Obama could persuade Iran's leaders that there's no rush. An Obama administration should make Iran's regime feel a little less like a target for the US's next fiasco.

On Georgia and Ukraine and NATO -- I don't know why you'd want to let countries that you can't defend into a defense pact. But isn't the Obama method to put them into some NATO in training program that will keep them from becoming full fledged members for a decade anyway?

Finally, we don't need a bigger military, they're both wrong about that. But don't worry, we can't afford one anyway and who'd sign up for it, given what's happened to the last batch who signed up for two weekends a month, 2 weeks a year and college subsidies.

it's a shame that the fictional commentator at TPM Cafe is the commentator i find myself agreeing with most and most often. and not just at the cafe, but... anywhere really.

I also agree with you, Rotwang. I utterly disagree with McCain on everything--and with Obama, he is smart enough and informed enough to know better. My problem with policy formation is this:

Some things change. Some things don't.

Of the things that change, somethings change almost at the speed of light, other change is glacial in pace.

So, a paradigm that presupposed the rising of the sun tomorrow morning still has a high order of utility. But a paradigm that says that American Military Strength can effectively address every conflict--doesn't understand the nature of the inter-relatedness of the global village.

As a nation, in terms of national policy, everything we know is wrong. So what if Iran gets a missile and a nuclear nosecone? Why do I have to protect Poland from Iran?

And why does the local Whole Foods have garlic grown in China, the home of melanine laced milk products? Why can't I get garlic from the truck farmer that lives 20 miles outside of town?

There was a time when America needed to trade tobacco for Rum. But most goods and services were produced locally. Oh sure, Rhett Butler might bring back the latest fashion from Paris, but most Americans were wearing homespun cloth, just like Mahatma Gandhi. The first Naval war we fought was to protect ourselves from British abuse. Did we really need the Navy until the Spanish-American War? And what was that about, really? Why did we need Naval Bases i the Phillipines? Why were we sending gunboats up the Yangtze?

What is in it for the typical American. We have always had policy for two classes--one set of policies to promote the interests of the international capitalists, and the other to govern the common masses of working Americans.

When Lenin was ensconced in the Kremlin, Brown, Bros Harriman was writing contracts with him to run the Czars mining cartels, and shipped the raw materials to his German partners, the Thyssens, who had been secretly bought out by the Rockefellers, who were able to buy the stock of many German companies due to Germany's worthless currency in the wake of WWI

My belabored point is that there is always policy that benefits international capitalists exclusively, and then there is policy that benefits the public. Until we have national figures that can tell both of these stories honestly, we will forever be prisoners of our own ignorance. I do see McCain as a Prison Guard--but I don't see Obama as a Spartacus figure, either.

And I desperately long to see a true liberator rise up, somewhere. Just like in the old Revolution.

Can you imagine a Boston Tea Party, today?

Dr. Rot,
While I agree with you that both candidates are way off in what they said in the debate last night, I long ago decided that you can't put much stock in what candidates say during the campaign, debates especially. Their discussion on the economy and what they'd do in the wake of a $700 billion bailout was instructive. For either one to propose a serious policy cutback would have been suicidal, as the other would have pretended it's still morning in America.

The only passage in the entire debate that I felt gave us a clue about what the candidates would do was when Obama said in regards to the bailout something like "the one thing we need to keep in mind is that any policy must be tailored to serve those at the bottom end of the economy. It never works to bail out the top end." A statement of principle. Other than that, we are left to observe and evaluate their performances onstage, like prizefighters: Who landed the best blows, who did the best rope-a-dope.

While those of us who really care about issues look longingly to the debates as a forum for an issues-based discussion, I think the political process has so constrained the ability of candidates to speak their hearts and minds, I for one, take their policy formulations with a lump (a block, a mountain) of salt.

And just for the hell of it, review McCain's statements and actions over the 48 hours preceding the debate. Regarding the bailout, he started the day supporting the principles of the accord, actually enumerating them one by one as his own, but by afternoon he had joined the House Repubs in scuttling the agreement based on an entirely different set of principles. He said he wasn't going to debate but then he did anyway. One of the requisites of a meaningful debate is that all participants have some commitment to truth and are willing to stand on their own foundational principles, and it's clear that McCain does not. How could you possibly have a meaningful debate with such a person?

Democrats have been burned over and over again for their sincere (pathetic-looking) belief in issues-based politics (think Gore and Kerry, and even Carter), while Republicans pretend to play the game as they gleefully subvert the rules and abandon inconvenient principles to secure advantage. I don't listen much to what Obama says because I know that what he says has little to do with the issues and everything to do with deflecting the Republican's disgraceful, democracy-destroying tactics. "Country First" my ass.

Ted Bucklin

Teh Surge is more like a temporary detente--of course it's quiet over there right now, because much of Iraq has been ethnically cleansed into homogenous neighborhoods, it's the middle of Ramadan right now, so they're all fasting, and busy preparing for the US to leave. In Afghanistan/Pakistan, we won't have beelions (more) dollars to throw around bribing tribals, like we did the Sunni of Iraq.

McCain's bluster about 'victory and honor' is hollow rhetoric, warmed over from the Vietnam hangover days. There were plenty of soldiers who thought we lost in Vietnam because they weren't 'allowed to win', which is code for 'blow up/shoot/incinerate everything in my path.' Same in Iraq, and unfortunately, they are as wrong as ever. Tactics cannot make up for poor strategy, and the Bush/Cheney/McCain 'tough guy' strategy has always been lacking, and is only getting less effective by the day. It's 'we had to blow the village up in order to save it' writ large.

I watched part of Bill Moyers Journal last night. Bill interviewed Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University and former Army Colonel, about his book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Basically stated our Republic, as we liked to think of it is dead. In actuality, we have a ruling political class with a deliberately weaker Congress and an Imperial President. The evidence is pretty clear when you think about the power of Lobbyists and Corporations, how Pelosi and Reid said we'd be out of Iraq since the DINO's won Congress in '06 yet took impeachment off the table. Now Pelosi says, in effect, homeowners in default will not get any assistance from the Wall St. welfare bill, but we'll buy bad paper to help speculators.

While Obama is clearly superior to McSame, his stance on FISA, bankruptcy reform and the military indicate he too will be intends the continuation of the Imperial President.

Obama is absolutely mistaken with his foreign policy conceptions as expressed in the debate.

No Abhazia, or Ostia justifies new Cold war front- development. Its just plain stupid.
Being the "World's Cop" while creating the next potential inferno of history, for millions or more, is utter vanity and Stupidity, maybe naive.

...also with the Afghanistan conception and ignoring world poverty as a fundamental factor for future security. (Besides of the basic Justice principal)

I hope its just elections Tactics and he doesn't believe this destructive-heroism crap.

Besides that, Obama's Directing was wrong. He was far too Bureaucratic looking, not changing his tone, Too Goodie-Two-shoes Laconic single-toned, no changes of tension in speech. It must stop.

Obama is a corporate centrist Democrat. He believes that the only way to govern is to attempt to please the interests of corporate power while being humane toward the little people who make the corporate power and wealth possible. He is suffering from the delusion that he is still a Democrat in the traditional sense like Truman was or Kennedy. This is a delusion that many a Democrat who has gone to Washington suffers from. Many actual Democrats out beyond the beltway believe in this delusion as well.

Some of us, however, have rejected the delusion that our leaders can serve two masters. Some of us believe that it is not in the interest of our people or our posterity to allow them to discard the republic handed down to us from our forefathers and mothers. Some of us believe that Democrats can still, they choose, steer our nation's course back toward civilization, humanity and decency. Some of us believe it is worth fighting for.

Obama and those who have drunk of the Obama koolaid genuinely believe (for the most part) that real progress can be made as long as we have "bipartisan consensus" on a set of critical issues. There is nothing on the political landscape that argues for this to become a reality particularly since the Republican Pary is now, for all intents and purposes, a fascist party. There is no compromise or bipartisanship possible with fascists.