Two Candidates

Here's the best comment I've read on Obama's Berlin speech, from The New York Times website:

Those who castigate Obama for being long on vision and short on policy forget the fact that no politician who lays out policy during the campaign actually remembers it after taking office (”Read my lips”).

What the candidate has said in this speech is very clear: We saved your Berliner behinds in 1948 when you were still stuffing your Nazi overcoats into the attic and now it’s time for you to help save the world from terrorism, even if you’re used to letting us do it.

But what’s important to me is that this argument is couched in terms of a vision of the future that considers our obligations to our children and the sorry planet we’re bequeathing them.

— Posted by magisterludi

That's what I think people have yet to catch onto about Obama due to his youth and optimism -- he's tough, and he wants tough things. He just knows how to frame the arguments from the start.

On the other hand, here's Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars on his opponent:

Like every speech of McCain’s lately, his confusing verb tenses claim that we have won and will win, have succeeded and will succeed and yet he’s still able to predict “defeat” from Barack Obama’s position, despite all this winning and success. It’s a stunning psychic ability for McSame as he then says that the troops will come home during “the next president’s first term.” Isn’t that what Obama promised as well? McSame actually told Wolf Blitzer that he thought Obama’s 16 months was a pretty good timetable. Confused yet? As Logan points out, McCain says that when he brings the troops home, they’re staying home. What does he plan on doing in Afghanistan? Those permanent bases in Iraq? Is this yet another flip-flop?

Here's the Blitzer interview moment:



One wonders if, behind the scenes, McCain has been losing his famous temper. One wonders if, by the time business opens on Monday, Obama will be hitting the headlines with more well-planned campaigning, continuing the foreign policy narrative of the past two weeks but somehow bringing it home, tying it to the economy, again turning the story.

I do think he and his campaign are that good, but we'll see shortly, next hurdle.

I wonder about luck as well.

And never bet against it.