I don't find Obama condescending. I certainly didn't in the debate. He wasn't the one going, "Oh, you just don't understand," all the fucking time. That got on my nerves a lot. It's like being lectured by a high school counselor or something.

In any event, Cafferty called it like he saw it. I still cannot believe Palin said reducing taxes needs to accompany tax reduction.

The debate was fairly even, I thought, and I'm a die-hard Obama partisan. It was really nice to see a debate between two speaking human beings forming sentences. I thought a lot of McCain's points were stupid or wrong, and I also found his (rehearsed) repetition of "Obama doesn't get it" to be condescending, but it was way better than any debate with Bush in it. Obama gave a lot of facts though, and showed a nuanced, developed understanding of foreign policy. He didn't get his clock cleaned on foreign policy and may, in fact, have won the debate. Really, just holding his own means he won because McCain needed a big foreign policy win, and he didn't get it.

Obama won the debate by virtue of:

a. Demonstrating his foreign policy expertise and abilities as a leader (which people previously thought he was weak on)
b. Being calm and open, contrasted to McCain's clear hostility, both in style and substantive policy
c. Not only keeping McCain at bay, but actually gaining ground on the only issue MCain had left to try and come back with.

I agree that it was a pretty even debate in most respects. But the fact that Obama was standing even with McCain on foreign policy was huge. He jumped up 30 points on the "prepared to be president" issue with this one debate.

Of course *I* didn't think Obama was being condescending. He demonstrated what I thought a president should be like, which is articulate, level headed and polite, but that's not what Americans generally go for. Obama's "lack of passion" is why he chose Biden, who just had a speech in Pittsburgh that left people in tears (I actually welled up a little too to be honest) and it was about fucking FOOTBALL and his family car accident.

So I was judging it based on the most likely popular response to their performances, and I agree that it was even. They both got their swipes in. This debate won't make much of a difference.

I didn't think Obama came off as condescending, but you may be right that it will be interpreted that way by some, because he uses big words and talks too long on policy sometimes (damn all that pesky substance).

McCain on the other hand was exceedingly condescending and I'm surprised it hasn't come up more. This debate was preceded with a new format which was supposed to have the two debating with each other by actually talking to each other. Lehrer did a bad job of getting the two men to spar, but at least Obama made the effort, and had the respect to look his opponent in the eye.

McCain never once looked Obama in the eye.

You can take that a few different ways. The most obvious is that McCain doesn't respect his opponent, and when combined with constant "my opponent doesn't understand", displays major condescension.

It's also very possible that he couldn't look him in the eye because he was having a hard time restraining his anger at his opponent, which from the look on his face is possible. And apparently Obama humiliated McCain earlier that day in the bailout meeting by asking a question to McCain which he knew McCain was too uninvolved to know. McCain refused to answer Obama, and apparently left the meeting early, alone, which caused them to cancel a bipartisan post meeting press conference.

And maybe, it's the most common human social reason for not looking someone in the eye: that you feel inferior or intimidated by that eye contact. Whatever the reason, it's not good. And I think people, if only on a base subconscious level, took note of that, which may explain the poll numbers in an otherwise fairly even debate.

yeah i loved that. then... 'dont make excuses for her. that was pathetic.' [paraphrased]

He's trying to remain objective. And hold back the laughter.

Or, giving credit to her religion:

Glossolalia' is constructed from the Greek γλωσσολαλιά and that from γλῶσσα - glossa "tongue, language" and λαλεῖν (lalein) "to talk". 'Speaking in tongues' is the result of translating into English the two components of the same Greek word. The Greek expression (in various forms) appears in the New Testament in the books of Acts and 1 Corinthians.

I see your wikipedia excerpts and raise you this one:

Cryptophasia is a peculiar phenomenon of a language developed by identical twins that only the two children could understand. The word has its roots from crypto meaning secret and phasia meaning speech disorder. Most linguists associate cryptophasia with Idioglossia which is literally the same, but also includes mirrored actions like twin-walk and identical mannerisms. Little is known about cryptophasia even with today's means of scientific research.

What we can can extrapolate from this is that the woman in this interview is clearly the evil twin, and has been keeping the real Sarah Palin locked in a basement for the past 15 years.

Wolf:
"Well now, that is true. Many people do not own maps. And South Africa and Iraq are both countries. So overall a balanced response to a difficult question. Although some people may not consider it the best answer. Lets hear from one pundit who thinks she's Jesus, and another who wants to eat her eyes. Then I'll conclude by saying there are many views on the subject, and figuring out which one is right or wrong isn't a job for the media."

The "words words words words" comment someone left on a previous Palin video I think sums it up. I also nominate "words words words" to be an official tag for those who cannot articulate.

Not bad. Roosevelt was a Democrat, though.

Also, I think it's like a law that Republicans always have to use Obama's middle name when referring to him.

You do know there were two of them, right?

You forgot about the fact that Sarah Palin is a mom and therefore more qualified to lead our nation!

up is down black is white dsghghsg;sdgs;gs;g

Two president Roosevelts!? You must think I was fucking born yesterday.

It's true;

Teddy, the Republican, was a rough rider and was always striving to better America.

Franklin, the Democrat, was a lazy liberal elitist who rarely even bothered getting out of his chair.

One of them was a tree-huggin queer who basically started the whole business of government regulating business and interfering in the market, including even controlling the prices of food, drugs and transport to make it cheaper for poor people. He set aside millions of acres of potentially productive coal and gas land, for parks to protect spotted owls. He ran against the Republican candidate in 1912, and used the military for humanitarian missions, wasting our armed forces having them help treat yellow fever in backward jungles.

The other was the Democrat.

You spelled "mavrick" wrong

Find out what Cafferty drinks and send a barrel of it to each of my other reporters!

It may be my youth as a Republican Revolutionary talking, but no way Quayle was this bone stupid about the most basic policy shit. I mean, Quayle's most famous embarassment is the nonsubstantive "potatoe." Palin's going to be remembered for "molecules" and shit like this.