Fighter Pilot Strafes His Target

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 16, 2008 9:43 AM

John McCain may have won over Joe the Plumber, but I doubt his "class warfare" swipe at Barack Obama turned the tide last night.

When McCain pounced on Obama's recent conversation with the aforementioned Joe, Obama countered that 98 percent of small businesses make less than $250,000, the level at which he would raise taxes. And Obama doesn't mind raising taxes on Exxon.

There was one line at the Hofstra debate that will become the sound bite of the evening: "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush." That was hardly "you're no Jack Kennedy"; it was almost like McCain was reading his talking point aloud. ( No. 3. Boss: Distance yourself from W.) And it allowed Obama to recite McCain's record of backing the mightily unpopular Republican president.

It was the first real debate between the two, thanks to the pointed and persistent questioning by Bob Schieffer. The turning point came when the CBS newsman asked the candidates whether they would repeat the harshest rhetoric of their ads and campaign statements to each other's faces.

McCain wound up accusing Obama of spending record amounts on negative ads and complained about John Lewis likening him to George Wallace. But he soon enough got around to Obama's ties to Bill Ayers and ACORN.

Obama countered that 100 percent of McCain's ads are negative, noted the cries of "terrorist!" and "kill him!" at Palin rallies and detailed his limited relationship with Ayers, dismissing the attack as a distraction. But he seemed defensive and off balance.

Obama passed up Schieffer's invitation to declare Joe Biden more qualified to be POTUS than Sarah Palin, answering without so much as alluding to Palin. Pressed again, Obama called her a capable politician who had fired up the GOP base. Clearly, he decided he does not want to run against Sarah Barracuda.

On the first abortion question of the debates, McCain would leave it up to the states, Obama defended the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. Both said no litmus tests; neither was entirely candid. McCain attacked on partial-birth abortion; Obama said he opposes the procedure but voted present on a bill that didn't make an exception for the mother's health. But again, he had to spend his time explaining.

McCain overshot the runway at times -- comparing Obama to Herbert Hoover, again? -- but clearly had decided that time is running short and he had to inflict the most damage he could in 90 minutes. He seemed to grow more condescending as the session wore on.

It was probably McCain's strongest debate, in that he spent the most time on offense. He landed more blows, but Obama's game plan wasn't to swing away. It was to project confidence, do a little counterpunching and seem eminently reasonable. And that he did.

Closing thought: How long before Joe the Plumber is on Larry King? Oops, I spoke too soon. Joe Werzelbacher was on Katie Couric's Webcast, saying he's still not sure where Obama stands. How many more debates does he want?

I thought the insta-polls would be closer this time, but I was wrong. CBS gives it to Obama, 53-22. CNN: Obama, 58-31. That tells me a lot of people were already leaning. Even if these polls are off, the margin tells you something.

McCain got better pundit assessments than after earlier debates in Mississippi and Nashville:

George Stephanopoulos: McCain "was able to set the agenda."

Tom Brokaw: Obama "appeared to be sitting" on his lead.

Jeff Greenfield: "McCain came out stronger and did push Barack Obama back on his heels a bit."

Pat Buchanan: Obama "almost ducked engagement with McCain."

Alex Castellanos: Obama was "professorial . . . his worst debate, his flattest debate."

The morning-paper assessment: McCain did well but not well enough.

L.A. Times: "A newly aggressive McCain failed to deliver a clear knockout blow in the candidates' third and final face-off, despite a series of sharp verbal clashes with Obama about higher taxes, negative campaigning, former radical Bill Ayers and a bald man nicknamed Joe the Plumber.

"Although McCain's performance seemed more spirited than in the two previous debates, the Republican appeared unlikely to reverse his steady downhill slide in recent polls."

Boston Globe: "Obama responded with cool, collected answers -- sometimes too cool, answering McCain's teeth-gritting attacks with a grin that seemed more amused than offended . . .

"McCain's very intensity may have at least prompted some voters to take a second look at Obama and his policies."

New York Times: "It looked like Mr. McCain might, just might, raise the level of his game in throwing Mr. Obama off his -- Mr. McCain's essential goal 20 days before the election, as he seeks a comeback in the face of declining poll numbers in battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Virginia.

"But then Mr. McCain began to undercut his own effort to paint Mr. Obama as just another negative politician. Mr. McCain grew angry as he attacked Mr. Obama over his ties to William Ayers, the Chicago professor who helped found the Weather Underground terrorism group. Suddenly, Mr. McCain was no longer gaining ground by showing command on the top issue for voters, the economy; he was turning tetchy over a 1960s radical."

Washington Post: "Obama was repeatedly forced Wednesday night to explain himself. But he did not lose his cool under his opponent's persistent criticism, parrying time and again with measured explanations designed to take the sting out of McCain's charges with voters who may still be making up their minds."

New York Post: "McCain finally shook off his barnacles and reminded voters of the higher taxes -- the surest economy-killer ever envisioned -- that come with all of Obama's warmth and fuzziness."

Josh Marshall: "It seems like we've now seen McCain's Ayers/ACORN primal scream. I'm not sure Obama knocked anything out of the park. But at the end of it, I don't think McCain landed any solid punches either. And McCain was often incoherent and a bit kitchen-sinkish. Basically a draw, though if recent polls are any indication, the draw in debate terms may hurt McCain since people do not like McCain's attacks."

Andrew Sullivan: "Obama won this for the third time. A small prediction: there will be YouTube mash-ups of McCain's facial reactions on the split screen. And they will have a longer life, for good or ill, than many of the substantive exchanges."

John Dickerson: McCain "did well, but it wasn't good enough. Obama was calm, in control, and won the debate."

TNR's Jonathan Chait: "John McCain was more effective and coherent than in the previous two debates. He mostly controlled the terms of the debate, in part by defining the average American as a plumber who earns more than $250,000 a year. His points, though often inaccurate, were not always rebutted (in part because Obama simply didn't have time to rebut every allegation.)

"However, McCain lost the overall message of the debate. The cost of McCain's sharper tone was that he sounded more like a dogmatic Republican. Obama was softer, let many points go, but was much more effective at sounding like a moderate."

National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru: "A couple folks here have been saying that McCain is doing better than in the previous two debates. I wish it were true, but I just don't see it. I think a few times McCain has come across as spluttering."

Roger Simon: "Sometimes McCain attacked directly, and sometimes he attacked sarcastically, but he never stopped attacking. And he never rattled Obama. Obama answered every attack and kept his cool.

"How cool? Obama was so cool that after 90 minutes under blazing TV lights, an ice cube wouldn't have melted on his forehead."

Slate's Emily Bazelon: "According to The Washington Post, McCain got it wrong when he said that, under Obama's health-care plan, Joe the plumber would pay a fine if he didn't provide his employees health insurance, because the Obama plan has an exemption for small businesses. Given that McCain from practically the first sentence trucked in Joe, last name and all, as his carefully planted and lovingly tended Real Guy, isn't this the definition of campaign malpractice? How could his staff have possibly failed to get Joe right? . . . When he registered open-mouthed surprise as Obama explained why he was wrong about Joe, McCain looked like a man playing Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin asking for a life line."

I've questioned whether the media have tried to tie McCain to a small number of nutjobs who show up at his rallies. Now conservatives such as Michelle Malkin say the same standard doesn't seem to apply to crazies on the left:

"When a few unruly McCain-Palin supporters show their anger at campaign rallies, it's national news. It's an epidemic of 'Weimar-like rage' and 'violent escalation of rhetoric,' according to New York Times columnist Frank Rich. It's the 're-emergence of the far right as a power in American politics,' according to Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. It's a mass movement of GOP crowds 'gripped by insane rage,' according to newly minted Nobel Prize--winner Paul Krugman. Too bad they don't give out global awards for the Blindest Eyes in Punditocracy. We've just hit a trifecta . . .

"Last month on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a small, brave contingent of McCain supporters marched through the streets with campaign signs. They were met by a menacing horde of New Yorkers who displayed their disapproval with a barrage of jeers and vulgar gestures. ('The number of middle fingers in the "progressive crowd" is directly proportional to the number of Ph.D. degrees in the 10-block radius,' one of the witnesses wryly observed.) A YouTube video of the confrontation now has half a million views. But don't expect to find it on the nightly news. It doesn't fit the Angry Right narrative . . .

"Speaking of 'violent escalation of rhetoric' you never hear about: Obama supporters in Philadelphia sported 'Sarah Palin is a [disgusting vulgarism referring to female genitalia]' T-shirts and yelled, 'Let's stone her, old school' over the weekend. An Internet artist has designated Palin an 'M.I.L.P.' -- 'Mother I'd Like to Punch' -- and published a drawing of a man's fist knocking a tooth out of the Alaska governor's mouth and the glasses off her face.' 'ABORT Palin' graffiti has sprouted on the sidewalks of Seattle, and 'Abort Sarah Palin' bumper stickers are spreading in Web stores."

My take is we ought to be careful about putting too much significance on fringe elements on both sides.

Pundit land is abuzz over the way Christopher Buckley, Kathleen Parker and David Brooks are getting kicked around on the right for taking on McCain and/or Palin. That prompts some interesting introspection by the Atlantic's Ross Douthat:

"Various folks have already gone round on this subject, but I think it's worth saying something further about the way figures like Mark Levin, Mark Steyn, Victor Davis Hanson and others have responded to those right-of-center pundits who have harshly criticized the McCain-Palin ticket and/or the GOP in general lately . . .

"I've always found the class-war element in inter-pundit sniping a little bizarre: Whether it's the netroots types hating on center-left columnists, or paleocons whining about how neocons get invited to all the cool parties, or Hanson's peculiar vision of David Brooks and Barack Obama chatting about Proust on the Acela (or something like that), it usually seems to involve the implication that successful newspaper columnists or think tank fellows live the lives of Hollywood starlets -- or maybe Gilded-Age robber barons, maybe . . .

"There is unquestionably a sense in which center-right scriveners who work for institutions more liberal than they (or merely exist in a climate more liberal than they) have both personal and professional incentives to criticize their own side as often as they do the other one, and to advance arguments and strike attitudes that drive more committed partisans up the wall . . .

"I'm also acutely aware, from my own experience, of the way that peer effects -- the desire to be perceived as the 'reasonable conservative' by friends and peers, the positive reinforcement from liberal readers, etc. -- can subtly influence the topics one chooses to write about and the tone one chooses to take. It's not a matter of wanting a seat at the table in the Obama administration, or anything absurd like that; it's just a matter of being aware of your audience, and wanting to be taken seriously by people who don't necessarily share your views, but who exert a significant influence over your professional success even so . . .

"What's the best course of action -- denouncing the rats, or trying to figure out why . . . the ship is sinking? Even if Brooks and Noonan and Buckley and Dreher and Kathleen Parker and David Frum and Heather Mac Donald and Bruce Bartlett and George Will and on and on -- note the ideological diversity in the ranks of conservatives who aren't Helping The Team these days -- are all just snobs and careerists who quit or cavil . . . when the going gets tough and their 'seat at the table' is threatened."

The Anchorage Daily News declares Sarah Palin to be "either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian" in claiming that she's been vindicated by the investigative report on Troopergate.

LAT columnist James Rainey hits CNN anchor Rick Sanchez for trying to tie Palin to the Alaska secessionist party, and then asking whether the party bears an ideological resemblance to those who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing.

The Daily Beast clearly plans a more, ah, passionate brand of media criticism than the one I practice. To wit, Jessi Klein's confession:

"I can't hold in the truth any longer. My feelings are too large to live just within the confines of my heart. I need everyone to know:

"I am passionately in love with David Gergen . . .

"All of a sudden my face felt hot. I was blushing. I was loving David Gergen.

"How do I love David Gergen? Let me count the ways.

"I love his low, quiet voice. That unmodulated buttery whisper that sounds like it's elbowing its way past a cough drop that's permanently lodged at the back of his throat. You know how Bed Bath & Beyond sells those white noise machines that help you sleep? And they usually make ocean noises? I want one that's just David Gergen gently muttering about the economy.

"I love the way Gergen makes me feel calm, even when he's making dire predictions about the future of our country. I love the way he knows everything and then formulates an opinion about everything that's always right. I love that his eyebrows only move when he gets mad, and I love that he almost never gets mad."

Could she possibly be pulling our collective leg?