Hal O'Brien

Looking about on the net, and having watched MSNBC's post-debate coverage, I'm somewhat surprised there hasn't been more reaction to this incident.

To me, the defining moment of tonight's debate came when McCain plaintively asks, "Zero?" below, and then sits, from 0:46 until 1:05, absolutely gobsmacked and at sea.

To make the obvious national security point: Imagine if this was an intricate negotiation, and Vladimir Putin surprised him as much as this does.

McCain's absolutely right -- the American people are being asked to make a risky decision.

Fortunately, we can vote for Barack Obama, instead.

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Two things that perked up my ears while watching the debate (transcript here):

* "Look, I -- I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants."
Given McCain's age, I wasn't sure that was possible. I knew he was on USS Oriskany when he was shot down over North Vietnam. The only nuclear carrier at that time he could be assigned to as an aviator would be the USS Enterprise.

Turns out I was wrong. Courtesy of Amazon's Search Within the Book feature, we get this from page 156 of McCain's memoir, Faith of My Fathers:

"I flew A-1 Skyraiders in two different squadrons on carriers based in Norfolk, Virginia: on the USS Intrepid for two and a half cruises in the Mediterranean; and on the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise for one short and one long Mediterranean cruise.

* Regarding his pastiche of the Vince Vance and the Valiants tune, "Bomb Iran": "I understand what it's like to send young Americans in harm's way. I say -- I was joking with a veteran -- I hate to even go into this. I was joking with an old veteran friend, who joked with me, about Iran."

It's like he was saying: "Awwww, shucks. I was just bein' homey, and chummy, and funnin' with a veteran friend. No harm in that, right?"

Leaving aside the issue of whether a president can afford to do that sort of thing even in private -- to quote someone with experience, "You don't say that out loud." -- there's the impression one gets that this was some sort of private joke, just between a pair of friends.

It wasn't.

It was at a VFW hall, so it was with a veteran. But there's no indication it was a particular friend of McCain's, other than in that grating, "My friends..." way of his. In addition, the veteran talking to him wasn't making a joke -- it's a straight up question: "When do we send them an airmail message to Tehran?"

Here's the video from YouTube, you can see the size of the group -- and the relative formality of questioner and speaker, not dissimilar from the "Town Hall" format of the debate tonight:

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