I watched the debate as long as nature would allow.  It was hard, as I normally don’t stay up that late.  There’s just so many fun things to do in the early morning, and I’m reluctant to miss any of them.  But I did see enough to realize that if Barak Obama had been a trial lawyer, rather than a law professor, he would have been far less likely to make a rookie mistake.

But first, a quick review.  It was a bore.  Listening to men who would be president facilely avoid answering any actual question by masterful segue into their prepared script of talking points, the same ones that they say over and over and over, is tedious, bordering on painful.  What a shame that they had so many eyeballs and ears at their command, and wasted it by repeating the script.

But McCain, in his twisting answers to fit his talking points, goaded Obama, with phrases like he “doesn’t understand” or “$18 billion in earmarks.”  And Obama took the bait.  A relatively reasonable question by Jim Lehrer turned into an attack by McCain and defense by Obama.  Obama let himself be put on the defense time and again, and let McCain turn question after question into his own.

Had Obama ever stood in the well of a court, he would have known that you don’t let your adversary turn the question to his topic, and thus goad you into limiting your opportunity into defending against his attack.  Obama got owned.  If I was his trial tactics (not strategy, but tactics) teacher, he would get a “C”, except that they don’t give C’s anymore, but that’s a different discussion.

By attacking Obama’s past votes and positions, McCain sought to force Obama do two things:  Spend his time defending himself and spend his time discussing only those things that McCain chose to raise.  Obama was playing on McCain’s field.

The lesson is well known to trial lawyers:  Don’t let your adversary dictate your position. 

The master of this tactic was none other than Ronald Reagan, with his famous, “There you go again…”  When these words came out of Reagan’s mouth, with his amused smile and fatherly demeanor, the game was over.  He owned the point.

It would have only taken Obama about 10 second to preface his response with, “rather than waste the public’s time with responding to John’s tired, false, scripted talking points, I would rather spend my time telling the American public about what the future can be…” or some variation thereon.  Dispute the inaccuracies and move on in one quick move. 

But then there was the opening to go after one of the more bothersome of McCain’s talking points that has thus far been left untouched.  He keeps talking about “corruption” on Wall Street.  The public loves the word corruption, because they are sure that it must be there.  But has anyone else noticed that McCain’s talking points, repeated innumerable times over the past few days, has been studiously vague.  Obama certainly should have picked up on this, and turned it against him.

“Sen. McCain, I’ve now heard you say that Wall Street is “corrupt” dozens of times since last Wednesday.  Who, Senator, is this corrupt Wall Streeter?  Give us a name, just one single name, of that corrupt person you’ve been talking about.  Corruption is a crime, and if you know of a crime, then give us the name of that criminal you’ve been talking about?”

Now that would have been a fun moment.

And if you want to give credit for speed in the face of disingenuousness, try this overnight McCain ad:

Is anybody else tired of vapid rhetoric?