I don’t chime in too much when it comes to domestic politics and policy because I’m largely out of my depth. I’m a foreign policy guy by inclination, and I don’t have the iron constitution required to wade through the slimy panderings of political candidates in order to arrive at their ‘true’ position on taxation, health care, entitlement reform, etc. I also maintain that the president has maximum leeway to do as he pleases in foreign policy, so that’s the main criterion he should be judged on.

That said, with what has been happening during the last three weeks on Wall Street, I don’t think I’ve ever cared less whether Obama or McCain would commit troops to solve a humanitarian crisis in Congo. Or whether the candidates think Russia is an Evil Empire. Or whether they’d send troops to the Middle East to fight Iran if Israel was attacked. Since neither candidate was able to go beyond the standard populist bromides when talking about the financial crisis, hearing them talk about what they would do internationally sounded incredibly silly and irrelevant.

EDIT: I should note that I’m coming down with a cold and am in a foul mood. Reading around the web, it doesn’t seem that people were as down on the debate as I was.

Here, via Brad DeLong:

Some younger guy said he should be President, but some cranky older guy said that yet another guy named Petraeus should be President. Maybe the old guy was like Petraeus’s butler or something?

It was a draw, which is good for Obama at the perception level: McCain never successfully put it away against a competitor who’s widely considered to be a foreign policy neophyte.

Overall, McCain’s foreign policy vision was disquieting. His linking of Iran solely to Israel’s existence was pure demagoguery, his Iraq “victory” talk was nothing more than a drawn out soundbyte which betrayed serious delusions about Iraq’s future, and his defense of our pro-Musharraf Pakistan policy was at best unconvincing in the face of Obama’s cheap and disingenuous criticisms.

What surprised me most, however, was McCain’s incoherence on Georgia, an argument in which I thought he had the tactical (if not wholly practical) advantage over Obama. Obama’s reaction to the Georgia crisis as it was unfolding came off as McCain-lite—a muddled and uncertain saber-rattle. All McCain had to do last night was be forceful and single-minded to have Obama look out of his depth. Yet McCain bungled it:

I don’t believe we’re going to go back to the Cold War. I am sure that that will not happen. But I do believe that we need to bolster our friends and allies. And that wasn’t just about a problem between Georgia and Russia. It had everything to do with energy. There’s a pipeline that runs from the Caspian through Georgia through Turkey. And, of course, we know that the Russians control other sources of energy into Europe, which they have used from time to time. It’s not accidental that the presidents of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine flew to Georgia, flew to Tbilisi, where I have spent significant amount of time with a great young president, Misha Saakashvili. And they showed solidarity with them, but, also, they are very concerned about the Russian threats to regain their status of the old Russian to regain their status of the old Russian empire. Now, I think the Russians ought to understand that we will support — we, the United States — will support the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine in the natural process, inclusion into NATO.

At pains to show how much he knew, McCain was scattershot and unconvincing. Which is it, Senator? Is it that we must stand by fledgling democracies no matter what, as the neoconservatives demand? Is it a wholly energy-centered (and quite frankly insane) gambit which demands we try to snake a pipeline from the Caspian between a hostile Iran and an increasingly hostile Russia at the expense of both powers? Or is it that Russia is acting on old Imperial impulses and must be stopped for some reason?

It’s a shame that McCain didn’t turn to friends like Chuck Hagel and Tony Cordesman, and went to unqualified ideologues like Randy Scheunemann instead. He certainly had the opportunity to be the foreign policy “adult” this election.

Since I don’t own a TV, I get to miss the debates. Therefore I tend not to get as annoyed directly by them as some people. Instead, I end up getting annoyed based on YouTube clips, morning NPR wrap-ups and stills like the one on the right.

Clinton would probably not be the worst president, but good god do I viscerally dislike her. Her laugh, her demeanor, her fakeness all drive me up the wall. She’s like Bill without the charm.

The thing is, it’s quite likely that my assessments, based as they are on second-hand, edited material, are no less valid than those of people who actually sit through these things in their entirety. The debates are set up to be as vapid as possible—a venue for sound-byte grandstanding.¹ It’s a sad state of affairs.