Webloggin » Spinning a Win for Obama from a Supposed Tie

I’m not going to try and convince you that John McCain won the debate. If you were one of the people that watched you already know who looked more presidential, who seemed to have a better command of the facts and who had to try and get the moderator to move on repeatedly.

But even though I am not going to try and convince you that John McCain won, some in the press are trying to convince you that Barack Obama did. And of course I’ll show you where they are wrong.

In the ramp up to the debate the press tried to set expectations, “a tie goes to Obama”, “will McCain maintain his anger”, “the economy automatically goes to Obama”, “foreign policy is not Obama’s strong suit, advantage McCain”.

Then the debate started, McCain looked very good on the economic questions. He hit Obama on spending, taxes and earmarks, big. When Obama tried to spin away McCain’s record McCain asked the viewers to go check the records for yourselves.

On foreign policy, well let’s just say that Obama looked inexperienced, he was on the defensive, he kept interrupting McCain and asked Leher to move it on twice. When Obama was trying to do a tit for tat “I wear the bracelet of a dead soldier moment” Obama actually had to look down at his wrist to recall Rayan David Jopeck’s name. McCain on the other hand told the story of having met the Matthew Stanley’s mother down to the soldiers age, date, when and where he was killed.

Slate magazine conceded a tie while trying to convince you that Obama held his own and this why he wins a tie.

Obama and McCain looked like equals onstage. McCain turned in a marginally stronger performance, but Obama looked strong enough, and in a tough year for Republicans with Obama leading in the polls, that’s a victory for the Democrat.

“In a tough year for Republicans with Obama leading in the polls”, where and which years have you heard this sort of logic before? The left is sure good at repeating their talking points as if history doesn’t matter. Obama has about a 3 point lead this morning at the time of this writing. In elections where Republicans trail in the polls, by about 3 or 4 points, Republicans win.

A tie for Democrats is just a great place to retreat to. A tie for McCain is of course his loss. See how this works? It’s great when people lower expectations for Democrats because it’s something they usually live up to. That way you can’t get too disappointed.

Joe Klein wrote in Time magazine about Obama’s supposed win. Apparently he was watching a different debate than most.

Toward the very end of tonight’s debate—which was quite a good one, I believe—John McCain laid out his rationale in this election in just a few words: Senator Obama, he said, lacks the “knowledge and experience to be President.” The presidency will turn on whether the American people agree with McCain on that—but on this night, Obama emerged as a candidate who was at least as knowledgeable, judicious and unflappable as McCain on foreign policy … and more knowledgeable, and better suited to deal with the economic crisis and domestic problems the country faces.

Unflappable? I’d say that Obama was actually starting to get pissed. Sure there was no moment where he completely fell off the tracks but I didn’t see much command of facts or foreign policy.

Klein then continued to hold the the debate in his article. Need proof that both Obama and Joe Klein are in spin mode, trying to realign what Obama said as if they were speaking truths? Here is Klein repeating that Kissinger preconditions argument that Obama made:

McCain was also confused about what “preconditions” means in diplo-speak. The Bush Administration had, until recently, set a precondition for talks with Iran: that the Iranians had to stop processing nuclear fuel. Obama would talk to the Iranians—as Henry Kissinger and James Baker would—without setting that condition.

And here is Kissinger last night after releasing a statement that Obama was misstating his position:

“Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.“

I think we can pretty much write the rest of Klein’s article off for what it is, a misguided effort to carry the water for Obama when Obama couldn’t really carry it wholly on his own.

Conventional wisdom reflects the polls in some respects but the Obama camp wants us to believe that foreign policy doesn’t matter in 2008. Anyone seen Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Venezuela or Iran recently?

There is more but I have to get a bit of my life back. It’s off to kids sports, coffee on the soccer field and all that good stuff that makes America great. I won’t be bringing a newspaper.

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