Dick Polman has a kickass opinion piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer today on the so-called “faith forum” this past weekend. I’m a little confused about why there is even such a thing as a “faith forum” with presidential candidates. But, there it was (TRANSCRIPTS). The title of Polman’s piece is “Visceral trumps cerebral”.
There is a definite contrast of styles here.
Question: At what point does a baby get human rights?
Obama’s Answer: “Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade. But let me just speak more generally about the issue..."
McCain’s Answer: “At the moment of conception.”
Question: "Does evil exist, and if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it, or do we defeat it?"
Obama’s Answer: "Evil does exist. I mean, we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil in parents have viciously abused their children and I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, you know, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world...Now, the one thing that I think is very important for us is to have humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, but, you know, a lot of evil has been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil...And I think one thing that's very important is having some humility in recognizing that, you know, just because we think our intentions are good doesn't always mean that we're going to be doing good..."
McCain’s Answer: “Defeat it.”
Polman writes:
“The biggest gut factor in this campaign is whether these swing voters can envision Obama tackling effectively with a national security crisis in the middle of the night. A ruminative ramble about evil, about the need for "humility" when trying to confront the evil that may exist in Darfur or in American households or wherever, does not have nearly the same visceral punch as a terse, focused response about al Qaeda (indeed, Obama never even got around to mentioning al Qaeda).”
The writer makes no judgments, just observations.
I have to say that I am not sure that it is "visceral trumps cerebral". It is more like "visceral trumps obfuscation". Obama tries to make everyone happy. McCain knows that is impossible.
No matter what you may think of John McCain’s answers, you have to give him one thing.
They were answers.
Monday, August 18, 2008
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10 comments:
Answers depend rather a lot on the caliber of the questions. Now that news reports indicate the whole gig was rigged for Uncle Grumpy, a re-think of its significance might be in order.
If you ask me the same questions, I probably would give the same type of answers as Obama. I DON'T know when human life begins; it depends on what you call life, I guess. Something happens at conception, and something happens at birth...to say that the being is the same is ridiculous.
As for the evil question...deeply philosophical. Sure, you can answer it easy if you want to suck up to to the hard core righties, but many people think a bit differently about the subject.
McCain won. Obama learned. Let's see next time...
Waldo: It is coming out now that it was actually Obama who was given the "competitive edge":
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2008/08/18/pressed-cnn-warren-says-obama-had-competitive-edge
A bit different, don't you think, between having advance knowledge of ONE question and possibly having advance knowledge of ALL the questions, and your opponents answers?
Possibly? A vague charge. Anything to back it up with?
Those were loaded questions with many shades of gray in the realm of possibilities. Politicians tend to answer black and white when pandering, and gray when dodging.
A politician who answers such loaded questions with such glib, stern answers does not impress me.
No....there is no proof that McCain had any advance knowledge, but there is no proof that, unlike many debates, the presenters could verify that one of the people could not access the information. Usually one does not start the debate until you secure the second person in a "green room" or other secure area. McCain was enroute in his limo, by his and the network sources. They say they did not tune in...but I can't imagine that his aides did not, and provide some, er, last minute "coaching".
This is more of a swipe at the people who put it on then at McCain, BTW.
Delaware Libertarian found an interesting article on this so-called "debate":
http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2008/08/sad-to-say-but-best-commentary-on.html
Quite interesting to see this perspective....you might want to check it out.
Very interesting, but I would take it to another level. Too much of our debate and discussion is over things like this. I am not sure what evil is, or even if we can fight it, but I know we've got it... but as TJ says over there on the right, WTF?
Let's hear the debates over the real issues....Iraq, health care, infrastructure rebuilding, education, the deficit, taxes...all much more meaningful and useful then a debate on good versus evil. Maybe one approach is better than the others, or maybe you can convince me that one way is beter than the others....instead, people want to put value on how someone responded to whether evil is real, and who it is.
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