As tempting as it is to mock both McCain’s canned answers and MSNBC’s parade of morons afterwards, I believe I’ll just say how pleased I was with Barack Obama’s performance last night. There were two answers he gave that made me feel particularly gratified. The first was when he was asked to define rich, and to assign a number. After getting a light-hearted jab in at Rick Warren, he basically said $250,000 puts one in America’s top tier of wage earners. I have been saying for years that at some point, after all the philosophizing and pontificating about taxes and other “class” issues, we must at some point come up with a figure. We can establish a baseline and adjust from there. It was gutsy to actually say it, particularly in a region of the country hit hard by the bursting of the real estate bubble.
I also applauded his assertion that it is incredibly irresponsible to suggest that we can “solve” our energy problems without first being ready and willing to make sacrifices. I wish he had explored this more in depth, but at least someone is saying something besides “Drill here, Drill now”!
That said, there was plenty of pandering to go around. I was glad to hear Obama state opposition to a Constitutional amendment that defines marriage. I continue to be amazed by those that feel we should tweak that document to restrict the rights of citizens. That said, though Obama may well possess some understanding of the issue of gay marriage, he made only a half-hearted attempt to highlight the struggles with which gay couples cope. There is much more than authorized hospital visits at stake. Part of the good fight to help “the least of us”, Senator Obama, is not to create more of those less than us.
I’ll probably re-watch both hours in the days to come, mainly to offer at least some balance to the gushing reviews by sound-bite dependent television “personalities.” But I did want to offer what hit home with me as I watched last night, prone as I am to forgetting things these days.
