Wow, never thought my inaugural post here would be politics. That’s what’s on my mind, so that’s what I’ll talk about.

Last night’s debate was rather disappointing. From the very first question, I waited and waited for Obama or McCain to say something substantive, but it was all fluff. Despite my general disenchantment, I still thought Barak Obama was the overall winner of the debate, for several reasons.

The cornerstone of John McCain’s arguments was Barak Obama’s lack of experience. Over and over, McCain reminded us about his war history and that he had been around for a long time. He also said Obama did not understand in response to Obama’s disagreement on almost every issue.

Besides the fact that disagreement is not the same as misunderstanding, what threw a wrench in McCain’s plan was when he said that Obama didn’t understand the difference between a strategy (the overall plan to achieve a goal/objective) and a tactic (specific implementation of a strategy). Not only was it pedantic, but if you paid careful attention to the examples used, McCain was the one who got the two mixed up.

In terms of the war, individual battles and such would be a tactic. McCain had the terms reversed, calling a specific battle a strategy. I probably wouldn’t have paid attention to a little detail like that, but McCain harped and harped on the fact that Obama just didn’t understand and then in his example, he was wrong. Unfortunately, most people don’t know the difference between the two terms (overall plan vs plan implementation) and missed that slip up; especially since even the analysts didn’t pick it up.

The other thing that really tilted the tables in Obama’s favor was McCain’s effort to blame people who didn’t want to invade Iraq in the first place, for the failure of said invasion. He called the current condition a “fragile victory,” saying that Obama’s lack of understanding and insistence on pulling the troops out of Iraq, would lead to Al Qaida setting up camp once the troops were gone.

So let me get this straight: The whole point of invading Iraq (or how it was sold rather) was because that’s where Al Qaida was hiding out, stacking weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Since the invasion, we’ve learned that not only were there no WMDs but there was also no Al Qaida. Toss on the fact that the Iraqi people obviously don’t like American occupation of their country, and it becomes apparent that the failure was in deciding to invade Iraq in the first place. It was based on lies and a large reason for why our national spending is out of control.

What do you think?