What I got out of listening to the first presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama this last Friday night. Summary= In regards to John McCain I saw and heard a very knowledgeable individual with years of experience in dealing with the affairs of the country.His arguments were precise and to the point,and his delivery and manor while not eloquent was down to earth and well based on the facts that he pointed out to support his position.On the other hand I saw and heard Barack Obama, an individual that seemed very nervous and in his actions reflected his lack of experience and knowledge of the subject of the debate, which was the economy and the national defense.His arguments were not precise and to the point, and he did not present the facts to support them in most cases but consistently relied on the strategy of cover everything but touch on nothing(like dancing around the mull berry bush or like the balloon shirts our grandmothers used to wear.) His delivery and manor was therefore somewhat confused . Specifics= On national defense: McCain had his opponent on the ropes time and time again forcing him to say the he, McCain was right,(Obama said that he agreed with McCain and that McCain was right so many times that I thought I was listening to a fresh recruit in boot camp answering his drill Sergent) getting him so nervous that he,Obama several times referring to McCain as Jim not John (confusing John.s first name , with Jim the moderator.) McCain was very precise in driving home to the audience three main points in regards to national defense, one: that while Obama states that he wants to enhance and restore this country's image, that he maintains has been eroded, his very stands on wanting to set a timetable for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq,will give Al Quida a great propaganda victory and allow them to state to the world that they forced us out of Iraq.Thus really hurting our image.also his stating to the world that he would sit down with dictators such as Kim Jong-il of North Korea and Ali Kharmenei of Iran without any pre.conditions would lend dignity to there movements and give them a venue to further spread their message of hate and terrorist threats. These stands of his are the same type of blunders that he claims he would prevent from happening when and if he was elected president. when John McCain pounded him on this, Obama tried to dance around this issue by parsing words and saying that pre-conditions was THE SAME AS PREPAREDNESS. As McCain said his opponent just does not understand it. Two: Obama's refusal to admit that he was dead wrong in not supporting the surge in Iraq and his remarks that this tactic had no chance of succeeding reflected his lack of understanding regarding military tactics. Now his refusal to admit to this indicates a very insecure person,afraid to admit when he has makes a mistake. Three: On Russia's recent invasion of Georgia, McCain again was very precise and had the facts to support his argument, plus the experience of being in the soviet blog time and time again, he pointed out that in the final analyse, oil was the reason behind Russia.s moves in this region, again forcing Obama to state that his opponent was right.On the economy: Obama again tried to cover everything while not committing himself to anything, but when his opponent nailed down the reason for our problems in the economy by stating that the cause was the run -away spending in the form of earmarks by both the republicans and the democrats in congress,that he has been fighting to do away with for years and that Obama was responsible for 18 million dollars of pork barrel spending in the form of earmarks during the time he spent in congress, Here once again Obama said that McCain was right, but tried to excuse his spending by saying that he had suspended his pork barrel requests, but was reminded by McCain that this happened only when he began to campaign for president.!!!( I expect this figure of 18 million would have been much higher if he had spent more time on the job that he is getting paid for( I do not know how many hours the Senate has been in session over the last four years, but he was only present for 153 hrs during that time as I understand it) the last two of which he has been absent due to running for president, but still getting his regular salary of over 180 thousand dollars per year from the taxpayers, Damn, talk about a rip off!!!!In summary: It appears to me that Obama while being a great communicator in the form of a public speech being able to arouse tremulous crowd emotions( like Bill Clinton and Adolf Hitler) he has very limited ability to engage in a one on one debate with an opponent.( unlike Bill Clinton, who did have this skill as well as being a great communicator, I have to give the devil his due. signed Zarc

With the recent nominations of the VP's the American voters now have the opportunity to decide on who we want to fill this office. On one hand we have the democratic choice, Sen. Joe Biden, one of the oldest members of our do nothing congress, who represents the politics as usual and the good old boy Establishment that has been a disgrace to their office and a insult to the voters who elected them. With this selection we all know that the slogan of Obama and the Democratic party "Change that you can believe in" is just more of the same old " promise them anything, they do not have the common sense to know s--- from shinola." On the other hand we have a fresh new face in Gov. Sarah Palin,a real down to earth, working housewife,and her five children and a husband who works as a commercial fisherman and in the oil fields, at last a family that we can relate to,(I know that there has never been a day in their lives that they have not been proud of their country) with all the problems of the average American family. For all you young voters and especially for you women of America who have been soul-searching to find the right person to fill this office and perhaps be the next president of this great country of ours. To borrow a saying from the early settlers of this country who were also searching for a partner to face the long hard journey to the West with " this is a gal that you can cross the river with" signed Zarc ( http://Forbodden@blogspot.com