Mr. I'll-Talk-At-You vs. Mr. I'll-Talk-With-You

The debate revealed to different speaking styles and one major ego.

Although the debaters were credited for not making any blunders, Sen. Obama’s tirade on when he was the president he could do whatever he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it, seems to me to be a major gaffe.

“But I reserve the right, as president of the United States to meet with anybody at a time and place of my choosing if I think it's going to keep America safe.”

The way Barack emphasized the above statement shows a deplorable lack of humility. The statement came out sounding like this…

“But I reserve the right, as president of the United States to meet with anybody at a time and place of my choosing if I think it's going to keep America safe.”

Wow! Why wasn’t that the sound bite of the debate?

McCain noticing the presumption of his opponent (“as president, I”) shot back with:

“I'm not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I'm president of the United States. I don't even have a seal yet.”

Besides Barack’s inability to “‘fess up” to his obvious mistakes about the Iraq surge and his proposed meetings without preconditions, his speaking style differed largely from that of John’s. It sounded like a debate between a conversationalist and a speech maker. It is surprising that after three days or more of preparation for this debate he was unable to match Sen. McCain’s rapport with the audience (I mean all of the audience - people watching and listening as well). Close, but not close enough.