Advantage: experience" (Chicago Tribune)

Its preety sad when a chicago news paper says mccain won the debate and obama is a illinos senator,if thats what you want to call him.

Advantage: experience" (Chicago Tribune) Editorial on the Debate Last Night

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
As the debate shifted to national security issues, McCain demonstrated why many voters see this as a strong area for him. He's been involved for decades in deciding whether the U.S. engages militarily in hot spots such as Somalia, Lebanon and Bosnia—and it shows. His cautious words about the careful use of power indirectly addressed the fear of some Americans that he'd be a trigger-happy president. Similarly, Obama's pledge to add troops in Afghanistan and his forceful language on terrorist breeding grounds in Pakistan addressed the fear of other Americans that he'd be a weak commander in chief.

On Iraq, Obama spoke repeatedly about his opposition to initiating that war. But he didn't directly respond to McCain's key points—that a surge-enabled victory in Iraq will leave this country with a stable ally in a bad neighborhood, and that the next president has to decide not whether to enter Iraq but how to leave in a way that best serves America. Obama gamely noted that he had chosen Sen. Joe Biden, a specialist in foreign affairs, as his vice presidential candidate.

The bulk of Friday night's debate took place on the turf McCain knows best: foreign affairs and military endeavors. That showed. Obama spoke capably on one topic after another; McCain, who has traveled to numerous crisis locales and joined in more foreign policy debates, spoke with more fluency and experience.

As one TV talking head said afterward, McCain spent the night on offense; Obama found himself playing more defense. The debate that almost didn't happen was a serious—and decorous—affair.