Observers of last nights second presidential debate have been wrinkling their noses at McCain's statement when he looked directly at Obama and commented "that one."

In my brief sampling the blogosphere, many bloggers have come to the conclusion that it was a racist comment. However, if you read the transcript, McCain could have been replying to Obama's earlier comment of "...the 'Straight Talk Express' lost a wheel on that one" in the debate over entitlements.

Well, it can not be argued that McCain was making a rhetorical response to Obama. Context matters here as McCain made his "that one" comment over the issue of energy.

I think McCain was playing up to the religious right like McBush did with his "crusades" and that doctors should be giving women love throughout the country - or whatever coded religious nonsense McBush "articulates" from his mouth.

Remember this ridiculous advertisement from the McCain campaign?  A shameless hack job of removing Obama's quotes from their context to shoe-horn them in context of the Biblical Antichrist.

McCain is making an allusion that Obama is the Antichrist. Please. Check out Wikipedia's entry about the Antichrist. Some members of this rather seemingly unexclusive club have been: the Roman Papacy and the Pope, Pope John Paul II, Peter the Great, Rasputin, a Jewish male, Nero, a latin man, Martin Luther, etc....

Stark naked racism? Not sure.

Coded-xenophobia and racism? Maybe.

Religious intolerance? Of course.

A smear? Definitely.

Boneheaded? Absolutely.

One of the best moments of last nights second presidential debate, I think, was Tom Brokaw's unscripted question about health care. He questioned Obama and McCain if health care was a "privilege, right or responsibility?" McCain answered a responsibility. Obama answered a right.

I found the differences between the candidates distinct on this issue. In re-reading the transcript of the debate, it seems to me that McCain qualifies responsibility as a government responsibility before going on the attack. Obama qualifies right as an unequivocal right predicated upon the affluence of our country. Only Obama was specific about his health care plan. McCain could not explain in detail by what he meant that health care was a government responsibility.

Rights are self-evident. We are born with them. Rights are not granted by a government entity as McCain's responsibility argument presupposes.

However, not all rights are the same. My right to murder is not subsumed by my responsibility to a civil, nurturing society. We liberals see health care as a necessary component of a compassionate and fair society. Therefore, accessable and universal health care is a responsibility of the government. But not mandated as McCain would mandate the conditions. Government's responsibility in this regard (to the liberal) only affirms a self-evident right.

So what do you think?

Right?

Responsibility?

Privilege?

Between Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain, and Sarah Palin, Palin is the odd man out in these elections.

Obama, McCain, and Biden do have command of the issues - even if we may not agree them. Their individual intelligence and experience on the issues is self-evident. With Palin, all we hear is string of badly connected talking points and campaign soundbites.

Palin, on the other hand, is greatly out-classed. Half the time her answers are unintelligible garbage, and the balance she's busy sounding like a lipstickified version of Bush. Doggone it!

Allow me to be generous.

Perhaps it is not McCain's bad judgment that drove him to pick that one, but McCain's humor. In the vice-presidential debate last week, Sarah Palin must have been referring to McCain's humor when she stated that "it was a lame attempt at a joke... I guess, because nobody got it." (Transcript)

I think I now get it.

I hope that I am not the only one that realizes the joke that McCain is pulling on us with Palin.

Here's my guess: 

McCain was brilliant without any practice in light of Obama's formidable oratory power. Now throw your unmentionables in honor of our new godly leader like we are at some Tom Jones performance.

 Whats your guess?