I finally got around tonight to watching Friday night's debate in its entirety, since I had to work that night. And I thought I'd try to make it some type of public service effort. So I decided to take on the right wing meme of Obama being too agreeable.
You know the bit...the MSNBC montage that brought such an evil laugh out of Chris Matthews, of Obama saying "I agree" repeatedly. Of course I know wingnuts love to take some little thing, twist it into something else and beat it over everyone's head, so I decided to investigate. Turns out I was right, our man was anything but a yes man.
O.K. gang, let's ruin their day.
Here are all the "I agree" bits I could find, this time in context, that wingnuts don't want you to see.
On the economic crisis:
Well I think Senator McCain is absolutely right that we need more responsibility, but we need it not just when we're in a crisis.
(goes on to blast lack of regulation and good for Wall Street as
opposed to Main Street)
Senator McCain is absolutely right that the earmarks process has been abused, which is why I suspended any requests for my home state, whether it was for senior centers or what have you, until we cleaned it up. And he's also right that oftentimes lobbyists and special interests are the ones that are introducing these kinds of requests, although that wasn't the case with me.
(goes on to refute what McCain said about how he's requested $902
million dollars worth of earmarks and uses the phrase "fundamental difference")
John, nobody is denying that $18 billion dollars is important, and absolutely we need earmark reform...
(goes on to say earmark reform won't help the middle class by itself)
Now, John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he's absolutely right. Here's the problem: There are so many loopholes that have been written into the tax code, oftentimes with support of Senator McCain, that we actually see our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world.
(goes onto say McCain wants to institute a tax cut on top of the loopholes that he apparently doesn't want to eliminate)
Senator McCain is absolutely right that the violence has been reduced as a consequence of the extraordinary sacrifice of our troops and our military families. They have done a brilliant job, and General Petraeus has done a brilliant job. But understand, that was a tactic designed to contain the damage of the previous four years of
mismanagement of this war.
(I was most troubled at first with Obama's agreeability here, but he then goes on to say McCain and Bush were wrong all along about the war and McCain acts like the war started in 2007, which I thought was one of his best smackdowns in the whole debate.)
So obviously, our policy over the last eight years has not worked. Senator McCain is absolutely right, we cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran. It would be a game changer. Not only would it threaten Israel, a country that is our stalwart ally, but it would also create an environment in which you could set off an arms race in this Middle East.
(goes on to disagree with McCain about how to go about the sanctions)
No, actually, I think Senator McCain and I agree for the most part on these issues. Obviously, I disagree
with this notion that somehow we did not forcefully object to Russians going into Georgia.
(goes onto say the Russian invasion of Georgia could've been avoided had international peacekeepers been sent there last year)
And I have to say, Senator McCain and I, I think agree on the importance of energy, but Senator McCain mentioned earlier the importance of looking at a record. Over 26 years, Senator McCain voted 23 times against alternative energy, like solar, and wind, and biodiesel.
Did I leave out any? And did anyone else see a pattern here?
Every single time Obama said he agreed with McCain, he then turned it around into a "fundamental" disagreement. And the agreements themselves were usually over the most general things. And the meme emerging from the right says two things: Karl Rove is alive and well, and McCain's surrogates no more want to "reach across the aisle" than they
want to quit their jobs and become community organizers.
So if you get these talking points from some obnoxious wingnut in an email, feel free to send these back to them and pee in their cornflakes.
Some other observations:
This is the first presidential debate where I was able to apply a Kennedy/Nixon test. I heard part of it at work by radio and thought it was a draw, but when I saw it on video, Obama pretty much wiped the floor with McCain. I'm convinced that looking-away bit was submission.
I recorded it off CNN, meaning I got to see the then-real-time graph on impressions from Democrats, Republicans and independents.
Every time McCain repeats that lie about Obama raising taxes, the graph for the independents drops; nobody's buying it anymore. Give it up John. (On second thought don't, it's a turnoff and that would help our side a lot.)
Obama actually raises his voice when he points out McCain's 90% agreement with Bush, and the independent graph goes up markedly.
McCain wields his "veto" pen as a phallic symbol; I've seen Bush and Tim Pawlenty do this too, and I think they have no idea how laughable and embarrassing it looks. If I absolutely had to use a phallic prop I'd use something a little bigger though I understand working a bratwurst into the conversation would be a little tougher.
Make no mistake...Obama owned the living hell out of McCain on the bracelet thing. Period. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or an idiot but they're definitely one of the two. No wonder the wingnuts are trying their hearts out to turn it into some kind of gaffe. Pathetic. Now everyone who ever hears McCain tell his bracelet story again, they'll be reminded of Obama's one time retort.
And every time McCain made one of those maddening remarks about Obama being naive or not understanding, the independent graph nosedives. I can't wait to see this graph during the vice presidential debate.
O.K. gang Monday is the day this meme will take over right wing radio with a vengeance; be ready for it and be ready to beat our opposing wingnuts over the head...with the truth.