On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:22:41 GMT, "Tom Littleton"
wrote:


"daytripper" wrote in message
.. .
Anyway...according to the only *sampling* poll of those who actually
watched
the debate that I've found so far, Obama "won" the debate hands-down.

I found it fun to keep an eye on CNN's response meter of real-time emotional
response from a captive audience. Obama was actually getting better response
from Republicans, at times, than McCain. It was visible that when the
speaker switched from Obama to McCain, the meter plummetted, so I think
McCain's mannerisms put folks off. Sadly, Obama missed one opportunity to
end it all. McCain went on about Iran's Republican guard being a supporter
of terrorism. Iran doesn't HAVE a Republican Guard, the military wing is the
Revolutionary Guard,

Er, no. There is the Army of the Islamic Republic and the Army of the
Guardians of the Revolution (which is commonly called "The Revolutionary
Guard" by much of the media in the US), which are, plainly, the two
divisions of "the Iranian army" when using "army" as a description of a
country's land forces, and which have some overlap. And FWIW, McCain
probably got "Republican guard" (which is an arguably correct military
Americanization/Anglicization of a transliteration, or, a simple
oft-made mistake) from reading military reports - Petraeus and others
have used the phrase "Iranian Republican Guard Corps." Long story
short, given the transliterations and Americanizations (versus
Anglicazations) of the Persian/Farsi, this wasn't an "AHA!" moment.

and had Obama politely pointed that out, it would have
made McCain look dim on his strong suit.

Not if McCain could have quoted Petraeus (or others) verbatim...and if
he could have explained it, Obama would have looked not only like a
nit-picker, but one who got his spike stuffed back on his ass...

Instead, Obama responded, repeating McCain's error.


So, silly season continues.
Tom

HTH,
R