Reactions to Back to Back Interviews

According to reports I saw on CNN yesterday, many people were impressed with Sen. McCain’s rapid, fairly short answers to questions asked of him, saying that he seemed to be right on top of the topics discussed, especially as to right-to-life values. At the same time, they felt that Obama was unsure of himself and rather fumbling for his answers.

I urge anyone who found McCain well grounded and Obama unprepared to find the interviews on the computer and look at them again. My reactions were the exact opposite. McCain had obviously been prepared by his handlers to give his answers in a machine gun manner, hurling them off the tip of his tongue and enumerating each with
unalterable, non-inclusive certainty.

Sen. Obama, on the other hand, spoke to his questioner in measured tones, considering the topic from all angles, without haste to impress his audience with curt replies, but as a compliment to the public by including our many views in his answers.

With regard to war and the threat of war, McCain, like Bush before him, is a little ahead of himself with his proclamation of victory in the present war, as well as American and world support for future wars. Also re the war in Iraq, no matter how many more people are killed on both sides, down to the death of the last Iraqi, and the total destruction of their land by our superior forces, according to my personal beliefs as an atheist, the United States can never achieve a victory which was plotted and carried out by this country under the leadership of George Bush and Dick Cheney against an innocent country without just cause.

ARW
8/20/08