Better Than a Debate

I really appreciated Rick Warren's interviews this weekend with the presidential candidates, Sens. Obama and McCain, at Saddleback Church in California.

Here are my first impressions from the two hours of interviews:

• I'm not a "McCain guy." But this is the first time I've felt really good about McCain as President; at this point he could pick Hillary for VP and I'd still vote for him. [That was a hard sentence to write on so many levels!]
  
• Obama gave a lot of safe, noncommittal answers, especially his "three wise advisers:" his wife, his grandmother, and everybody else. Seriously? You do know that you get your wife's advice whether you want it or not, right? McCain blew him out of the water on this one.
  
• Obama can profess faith in Christ, but 20 years in a divisive, race-baiting, black liberation theology church (which he didn't mention) is outside the pale of acceptability for someone who should unite the country. He won't bring healing but further divisiveness.
  
• Obama is for abortions on-demand and infanticide, doesn't know his facts, and misunderstands the context in which most abortions happen (they are not carefully, rationally thought out by responsible women making choices about only their own health). And the comment about determining when life began being "above his pay grade…" Wow.
• When McCain speaks of the monumental challenges in his own life, it nearly moves me to tears. It makes Obama look incredibly amateurish. Obama is clearly fighting above his weight class.
  
• For all of Obama's supposed speaking talent and intelligence, McCain is notably better at speaking off-the-cuff without stuttering or stumbling.
• I loved McCain's line about helping bad teachers "find another line of work." Classic. He also supported school choice and homeschooling.
  
• Overall, Obama looks good; in spite of the ears, he's quite telegenic. McCain looks a bit like a corpse. Sorry.
  
• McCain had me sold at his answers about judges. That's all I really needed to hear, personally speaking. The other twenty great points he made were just icing on the cake.
• Blogger spell-checks "Obama" and ironically suggests ABM (anti-ballistic missile).
  

Links:
• Ten [more] Things Above Obama's Pay Grade
• Was that a Conservative McCain at Saddleback?
• On the forum itself. Warren's mistake?
• McCain was so good, Obama aides say he must have cheated.
• Obama and infanticide.