The First Obama McCain Debate is Victory for George W. Bush

I watched the first Obama/McCain debate. McCain said over and over again, in a Reagan-like fashion, "I think you just don't understand", in an attempt to drive home his thesis that Obama would lack experience.

The problem is, and everybody knows it, that McCain got us into the Iraq War and now he has no plan to get us out. He ignores the Afghanistan war, even though it's killing more us US soldiers than Iraq is now.

And McCain wants to expand the wars in the Middle East. McCain did a great job of expressing his undying support for Israel, without stating explicitly that that would lead him into war with Iran. But it would, and has top adviser, Douglas Holz-Eakin, has said as much.

The following is from the Truth About McCain blog, citing the Financial Times:

Would John McCain's election result in perpetual war in Iraq and elsewhere? Well, just look at what John McCain's chief adviser has to say about that. John McCain's chief policy adviser is Douglas Holz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, heads the Greenberg Centre for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and here's what he says about the loss of Americans lives and the economic cost of the war:

[T]he current and future budget cost and loss of life and health probably give the right magnitude. If so, the annual war bill represents only about one cent of the $12,000bn of national income each year, and the total military cost at most, a nickel. And that is the right lesson: the foundation of US international influence is its large, powerful economy which can absorb the narrow, resource costs of war and free the US to pursue strategic [WAR, WAR, WAR] and security goals. FinancialTimes.Com (emphasis added)

John McCain is always wrong about Iraq, and his errors are very dangerous. As when,

. . . he said the war would be "brief" and be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues. Or as he was in the 1990s, when he championed extravagant State Department funding for the war instigator Ahmad Chalabi, who'd already been branded untrustworthy by the C.I.A. (The relationship between Mr. Chalabi and the former lobbyist Charles Black, now a chief McCain campaign strategist, is explored in a new book, "The Man Who Pushed America to War," by Aram Roston.) NYTimes

Read the whole article. With McCain's chief adviser's reasoning, we can expect even more wars like the one in Iraq under a McCain Administration, since the Iraq War continues to be such a great bargain for America, both in terms of loss of life and expense to the US Treasury.

Meanwhile, Obama also knocked down on of McCain's (and all Republicans') chief criticisms of Democrats, as being pacifists unwilling to fight wars that are necessary for American security. Basically, the only thing a Democratic candidate has to do to win on this count is point out a country where he IS determined to fight a war, and show determination about it. Obama met the test.

McCain has been in Washington 22 years, watching the country get into the mess that it's in now, and providing some critical votes and support to this mess along the way, 90% of the time.

Between McCain and the battery of lobbyists that run his campaign, they probably have hundreds of years of experience - fleecing the American taxpayer on behalf of the rich and well-connected.

Americans want change and, precisely because McCain is so entrenched in the lobbyist merry-go-round, we know we will not get that change from John McCain.

If voters want another four years of George W. Bush, whom McCcain supports 90% of the time, then voters will support McCain, to continue the Bush legacy. If voters want change, clearly it's Barack Obama who offers change.