I came up with this potential slogan: Dependence on foreign oil is dependence on oil.

McCain talks about American oil, versus foreign oil, and it is baloney. If we stay with oil, most of our oil will be "foreign."

The only way to end dependence on foreign oil is to end dependence on oil.

McCain already did very badly just by displaying such contempt for Obama and starting so many statements with direct insults. I think he was trying to anger Obama. Rage--that's ground that McCain understands. You could see that by how close he seemed throughout to blowing. He seemed insulted just to have to stoop to this, and we all know how well an entitled attitude worked for Hillary. And then his frequent interruptions of Obama, and his obvious waiting-to-talk. And a number of easily disprovable lies, such as the one about supporting solar energy, as well as claiming that he will not raise any taxes, which will now be impossible no matter who wins.

But the spending freeze(remember, without raising taxes!) sticks out in my mind because of its sheer absurdity. Everything but the military, national security, and vet's benefits? Really? So he's going to close down every federal agency, just for beginners? Does he know what that would entail?

Of course he does and he knows it's absurd. But his base thinks that the government only spends on silly projects, forgetting the salaries of all federal agencies, forgetting infrastructure, and so forth.

What will definitely stay will be the tone. And McCain sounded like, well, some old jerk, and Obama sounded like a president-to-be. The dynamic was very much like the 1992 debate between Clinton & Bush in which Clinton used the "have you no shame" line. Condescension doesn't work in these situations. It's audible sweat.

I really think that gives as much insight into McCain's judgement and instinct as anything he's ever said.

He would freeze all spending, except defense, veterans, and entitlements.

When the economy is nearing catastrophic failure.

He is not a person who gives any thought to the problem he faces him before he's throwing out his "plan." He thinks it's far more important for the President to be decisive and bold than to be informed or realistic.

In conceptual caricature, McCain's the kind of guy you might remember from your foolish youth. The guy who suggested painting the ceiling with rubber cement to fix a leak, or jacking up the back end of your car to save gas, "because it's like it's always going downhill."

If this man manages to take the office of the Presidency, within two months he screws up something horribly by shouting out his first (malformed and dimwitted) idea as the solution.

Spending freeze,gee I know most of you can't remember past Clinton but it is a tactic used before to curb spending.The amount of money that turns up to use from all kinds of unexpected places because congress is forced to do thier job and find places of waste to get the money where it is needed the most.Waste, we waste alot of tax money.Government is out of control and everybody knows it but nothing can be touched because it was part of this deal or Pelosi promised that or whatever and Bush sold out conservative ideology and never vetoed a spending bill or spoke out or took the case to the people.Barack's answer well maybe we won't use the credit card as fast but I still need to spend will hit it's mark with independants fearful of the far left and New Party socialist agenda.

We need to get off oil but the world cannot do it now and who in the world can we depend on to drill,process and used the resource more responsibly than us?.The Chineese are working with Cuba and drilling off the Florida coast now.Will they be more responsible than us?Every dollar we spend on foriegn oil is a dollar we cannot recover any part of to move towards alternatives.The more of our pot we spend here the more we lessen the transfer of wealth,the sooner the transition to other energy sources.The sooner we develope better technolgy the sooner we can market it to the world and help them move to other sources as well.As far as I know we all use the same oceans and breathe from the same atmosphere.Yes alot comes down to drill baby,drill.We need to show the way and we cannot do this by handing our wealth to adversaries who work for our demise.We need to do it all.

It is not surpising the far left cannot understand this.This current financial crisis a direct product of Fannie and Freddie and government corruption,ex Clinton budget director,and current Obama mortgage advisor, Franklin Raines gave back 28 million this year but kept 90 million from his fraud years.This is one of the many facts democrats don't like being made known like all the special VIP mortgages high ranking democrats like Chris"Countrywide" Dodd got,they know it is most of thier hands now caught in the cookie jar and know thier only hope of cover up is to not let the market fail.The democrats have enough votes currently to pass any bailout bill they want,why would they want 20% of what we get back to go to a political group Acorn instead of paying off the debt.Acorn a program Obama is quite familiar with from his Chicago days,riddled with corruption.The democrats defered to Obama at thursday's meeting and it blew up in his face.They can pass any bill now,they have the votes,but they want the cover of the house republicans to cover thier glutney and corruption and the house republicans have said enough is enough to both big business on the right and big corrupt government on the left and the common man understands.Ride that horse John,the socialist entry is the sure loser.

"Every dollar we spend on foriegn oil is a dollar we cannot recover any part of to move towards alternatives."

Well, actually, a significant number of the dollars we spend on foreign oil get paid right back to US businesses for nifty made-in-the-USA military hardware.

Someone here doesn't have the deepest understanding of the issues, and I don't think you're the guy to explain it all for us.