“I have a bracelet too.”

Barack Obama is the most accomplished liar I have seen since Bill Clinton, maybe even better than Bill Clinton. John McCain, on the other hand, is one of the worst liars I have ever seen in public life. This is not a criticism of Obama or praise for McCain. Being a smooth liar is arguably a desirable quality in a President. It certainly didn’t hurt FDR or Thomas Jefferson. As an old college debater myself with a 99% winning record, I had to wince at McCain’s performance more than once.

The problem is that I, and by extrapolation everybody else, have no idea who Barack Obama really is. Nobody has any doubt about who John McCain really is. I believe that the gulf between the reality of Obama and the public image of Obama is enormous, a yawning chasm the size of the Grand Canyon, whereas for McCain it is practically nonexistent. What you see is what you get, and has been for many decades. Maybe I’m wrong. Who knows? Maybe Obama is actually a decent, honest, idealistic guy who rose to the top of Chicago politics through sheer excellence of character and ability. But I doubt it. This guy is a smooth-talking equivocator. I can’t stand him. He enrages me. I despise him. I think McCain, and the Clintons, feel the same way. They can’t believe this guy is getting away with it, but of course he is.

As far as the debate went, Obama is a vastly more skillful debater than McCain. The only reason it was pretty much a draw is because Obama was saddled with a weaker case to defend. When talking about the current financial crisis, the single most important issue of the moment, they both managed to expel large quantities of verbiage containing not a single speck of meaning. McCain scored a few points on earmarks but neglected to mention the fact that he, John McCain, has never requested any earmarks for Arizona. As an old debater I found this inexplicable.

In general I thought that Obama eked out a slight victory on points during the economic babble. McCain doesn’t care about economics. He believes that the federal government should stay out of economics as much as possible. I agree with him, but of course he can’t say that as a candidate for President, especially now. The economic hypocrisies demanded of a Presidential politician are a real problem for McCain, but are a piece of cake for Obama.

When they got onto foreign policy, all of a sudden McCain seemed to come alive. He was direct, he was speaking straight from the heart and from experience, he looked like someone who knew what he was talking about, and who knew what to do about it. He recited numerous, hard to pronounce, names of foreign leaders of obscure states. Obama was professorily articulate, like someone who had studied the subject, but had never actually dealt with it. But he didn’t make any mistakes, and he came across as acceptably competent. I would give the win to McCain, but Obama didn’t embarrass himself, which is really all he had to do.

For me, the key moment of the debate occurred after McCain had related a heart-rending anecdote about being given a bracelet by the mother of a soldier who had been killed in Iraq, which McCain swore to wear “with honor”. When it was Obama’s turn, he began by saying, “I have a bracelet too.” Obama supporters probably didn’t even notice that, or if they did, it didn’t matter. For me, it was the clincher.

Overall I think that people who prefer McCain, like me, still do, and people who prefer Obama, also still do. Which means that Obama wins, since he’s ahead supposedly. I doubt that he’s really ahead. The polls always say the Democrat is going to win, and he never does. And then there’s the Bradley effect. I just hope and pray there are enough white racist Democrats left in the country to keep this dangerous demagogue out of the White House.