McCain really cares and is willing to work for a deal and LEAD-- Nobama could care less--he doesn't get it in his self absorbed world of terrorist,racists and criminals.I would rather have a president who put our economy first rather than his own ambition.

Thursday night, I received 3 different e-mails from various political organizations asking their members to call John McCain's office and leave a message urging McCain to attend the debate. When I called his D.C. office his mailbox was full, I left a message at his Phoenix office. I'm guessing the media speculations about the sincerity of his move and the overwhelming public response made him attend the debate.

from anti-war.com's blog:

September 27, 2008 in News by James Bovard | 13 comments

In last night’s debate, McCain again strutted out the fact of his POW status during the Vietnam war.

A servile media has long allowed this to be the primary part of McCain’s halo.

But instead, it should raise questions that go to the heart of McCain’s willingness to betray his fellow soldiers and countrymen in pursuit of political profit.

Sydney Schanberg won a Pulitzer prize while risking his life covering Cambodia for the New York Times in the 1970s. The Nation just published a Schanberg expose that proves that McCain intentionally pulled strings to bury U.S. government information on American soldiers left behind in Vietnam. Upon returning from Vietnam, McCain “pulled himself up by his bootstraps” by burnishing Richard Nixon’s boots - and denying the existence of POWs left behind was Obligatory Lie #1.

Schanberg’s sources are 10-karat, if not better.

Here [see 1] is the shorter version that appears in the October 6 version of Nation.

Here [see 2] is the longer version that appears in a study at the Nation Institute webpage.

The media never cares enough about American soldiers to even ask McCain about his role in covering up info about American POWs left behind. But the press turns into his boot burnishers whenever he struts out his tale of suffering.

[1] =

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/schanberg

[2] =

http://www.nationinstitute.org/p/schanberg09182008pt1

My dog exhibits this same behavior when I'm mad at him. But seriously, it seems that McCain was neither hound nor primate, but a politician. Judging from his references to Obama's naivete and inexperience, and his visible fake disgust with Obama's made up corruption, I assume he was trying to demonstrate his disdain for Obama, a disdain that he hopes will be obvious to the audience through his pantomime. I am no primatologist, but I suggest that this is a well worn tactic-- monkey see, monkey do. Republicans are fond of this gambit, barging out of rooms, etc. I think it might be delivering diminishing returns at the moment however.

The dean of DC's ape experts:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/27/AR2008092701357.html

McCain as the Alpha Male
By David S. Broder

Sunday, September 28, 2008; Page B07

[...] Obama's frequent glances in McCain's direction and McCain's studied indifference to his rival. [...]

[...] Obama seemed to accept McCain as the alpha male on the stage in Mississippi [...]

- - David S. Broder, 9/28/2008

* * *

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/220226.php

And here's another note from TPM Reader TB. I guess I'm really not sure quite how to characterize it ...

I think people really are missing the point about McCain's failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear--look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior--low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that.
- - TPM reader "TB"

So McCain may have given away his status as a low-ranking monkey. I'd never even considered monkey rank.

Late Monkey Science Update: In case anyone's wondering, I looked up TPM Reader TB's page at the University he teaches at. And no doubt about it, he appears to be a genuine monkey scientist, or to be more specific a researcher on social cognition and behavior in primates. I'd link to his page. But readers remain anonymous, save for their initials, until they tell us otherwise.

- - Josh Marshall

I'm not sure if you were talking (at least in part) about me when you wrote this:

Or would you rather continue to ignore my comments in favor of ad hominem wrangling with people who've conveniently failed to attack your thesis on its merits?

While I will cop to having dangled some ad hominem bait in front of him in my second reply, my first went right to the heart of his contentions:

Without even following your links - just looking at the excerpts you *yourself* chose to support your argument - this completely undermines what you are asserting:

In Boston, where defaults are rising — especially in minority areas — 73% of high-income black buyers (those making $92,000 to $152,000) and 70% of high-income Hispanics had subprime loans in 2005, compared with 17% of whites.

Does it occur to you to wonder why the percentage of high-income minorities getting subprime loans is so much higher than the percentage of whites getting those loans in the same income category?

Does it occur to you to wonder whether having a subprime loan has any relationship at all to the risk of defaulting on that loan?

While I didn't make my arguments explicit, my questions were intended to undercut his "arguments" by raising the objections that:

1) A bank putting a particular loan into the subprime category is not just a measure of the perceived risk on that loan; it actually increases the risk of default on that loan. (Imagine two identical borrowers, one is offered a loan on prime terms, the other on subprime terms. Which one is at greater risk of default?)

2) It appears likely that minorities were disproportionately in the subprime category based on factors other than real credit risk. (It's possible that minority borrowers with similar incomes to white borrowers may have had other credit risk factors; it's even *possible* that those other risk factors had a 4x higher concentration among minority borrowers than among white borrowers. But I would want some evidence of that before I accepted it. It seems more likely than not that minority borrowers were put into subprime loans at higher rates than whites with similar incomes for reasons other than credit risk, meaning potentially for discriminatory reasons.)

Therefore, the assertion that this crisis is due to subprime loans to minorities would require evidence that minorities were disproportionately represented among subprime defaults, not compared to their proportion in the population as a whole, nor even to their proportion in the population of defaults, but specifically compared to their proportion in subprime originations. (I think your argument is that this is the standard of proof he must meet, regardless of 1 and 2 above. That makes your argument stronger than mine, but I don't think it means that mine fails to address his "argument" on its "merits".)

I could have explained all this to what's-his-name, but by that time he had proven himself uninterested in, and potentially immune to, logic. But I do hope that you will see it and appreciate that I made a sincere effort at rational argumentation.