The punditry has ignored McCain's gaffe when he stated that Reagan made no effort to talk to the Soviet leadership before the rise of Gorbachev, but that is a false according to written statements by Reagan in which he wanted to to have some sort of relationship with the Soviet leadership before 1985. Plus the there is many books written by scholars such as Richard Rhodes, Melvyn Leffler, and Beth Fischer that stresses the point that Reagan had a fear of nuclear war and wanted a reapproachment with the Soviets in the early nineteen eighties. It is obvious that McCain, the supposed expert on foreign policy, has not read any books about the Cold War period or his hero Ronald Reagan.

In the dabates McCain stated that Obama did not know the difference between tactics and strategy. But it is obvious that Obama did know the difference in that the COIN operations in Iraq are nothing than more than a tactic since they have not acheived their strategic directive which is a peaceful political solution in Iraq. McCain, on the other hand, just believed in winning for the sake of winning but was unable to describe how exactly the United States would achieve victory in Iraq. While Obama was able to state how our operations in Iraq impede the effort in Afghainistan and has ruined our stature in the world. Obama seemd to have his eye on the ball while McCain was very narrowminded and just concentrated on abouy 8-10 months of reduced violence in Iraq and believed it to be some sort of strategic victory even though there is no political solution.

David Letterman made an intersting point on his talk show about why McCain should not suspend his campaign and cancel his appearance on the show because he had a VP candidate that could take his place. Letterman constanlty told the audience and Keith Olberman that  McCain shows no confidence in his VP pick's ability to take his place on the campaign trial. This shows that even John McCain does not trust Sarah Palin's governing ability in his refusal to let her run the campaign in his place.

In the upcoming debate the punditry has stated that Obama should not give long drawn out "intellectual,'" answers but should give short concise answers. On the other hand the press seems to love McCain's short and contradictory answers because they appeal to the "common," people. The press made exactly the same criticism of John Kerry and Al Gore while letting Bush get by with numerous gaffes. Maybe it is not Obama that has the problem, but the press corps. The press should probably do more research on the issues so that they could understand the candidate's answers. Unfortunately when a member of the press corps does not understand the answer, he or she usually states that the candidate is somehow too smart for the average voter. In the dumbing down of America, I believe that the press holds a lot or repoonsibility in their laziness.