Not that he's picking sides or anything, but Mr. Bipartisan Consensus National Unity Can't-We-All-Just-Get-Along? David Broder found a bright spot in John McCain's debate performance Friday night:
It was a small thing, but I counted six times that Obama said that McCain was "absolutely right" about a point he had made. No McCain sentences began with a similar acknowledgment of his opponent's wisdom, even though the two agreed on Iran, Russia and the U.S. financial crisis far more than they disagreed.As for the signs ol' Broder's a tame, partisan bitch, they're tough to miss.
That suggests an imbalance in the deference quotient between the younger man and the veteran senator -- an impression reinforced by Obama's frequent glances in McCain's direction and McCain's studied indifference to his rival.
Whether viewers caught the verbal and body-language signs that Obama seemed to accept McCain as the alpha male on the stage in Mississippi, I do not know.
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