Pugilism

Yes, it distracts us from real issues, and yes a lot of it is silly. But today, finally, Barack Obama brought his A-game to the art of "drawing contrasts" with his opponent. Responding to the comment by John McCain that he was uncertain about the number of houses he had, Obama had a field day. "I guess if you think that being rich means you've got to make $5 million and if you don't know how many houses you have, then it's not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong. But if you're like me, and you've got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don't lose their home, you might have a different perspective." He then quickly got a killer ad with a great punchline on the air.

The McCain campaign hit back with the predictable laundry list (e.g. Obama's income last year, his own one million dollar home, his association with Tony Rezko), punctuated, of course with a reference to McCain's POW status during the Viet Nam war, all in what appears to be a futile attempt to turn the gaffe to their advantage.

Of course, what is just nuts about this is the fact that John McCain has proven himself to be the worst on substance-his national security ideas, his health care "policy" proposals, his ignorance about the economy, and his hypocrisy about social issues (that pander-thon that was McCain at Saddleback last week was sickening), and yet this is what is going to stick. Go figure.

It's Thursday, and I'm willing to go out on a pretty long limb and guess that Joe Biden is the guy we're all going to be looking at tomorrow or Saturday at Obama's side. Good thing, too. Even though his behavior as Chair of the House Judiciary Committee during the Anita Hill hearings was really creepy, my man has no problem going after the jugular, and he can do it on the issues.

Today it was Obama taking it to McCain. If, as I predict, Biden is elevated tomorrow, we can rest assured that the team will not only be able to deliver a good one-two punch, but they'll be able to go the whole ten rounds.