Sen. Obama has given McCain several openings so far in the debate; to this point, the Republican nominee has only taken a few of those opportunities to go on the offensive.

From Obama’s claim that he warned the administration and the Congress Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when it was McCain who attempted to actually deal with that mounting crisis through legislation, to Obama’s claim that he will cut taxes on 95% of the American population when barely half of that number even pays taxes to begin with, the more temporal distance the freshman Senator from Illinois has gained from his by-rote memorized introductory remarks, the more he has opened himself up more and more to McCain’s calculated responses — and McCain capitalized on several of those opportunities (though he ignored the opportunity to skewer Obama on the latter’s deep connections to Fannie and Freddie).

Transition to Foreign Affairs – Tilting the Debate in McCain’s Favor

Obama, who supported total withdrawal from Iraq by March of this year — six months ago — attempted to have it every which way simultaneously on that conflict, continuing to oppose the ‘surge,’ referring to his supposedly brave speech against the war — to an anti-war audience — in 2002, reiterating the fallacy that Iraq, a central front in the war on terror, took our eye off the ball in the GWOT, and trying to claim credit for the political and peaceful advances in the Middle Eastern country.

McCain, who has a far greater understanding of the country, the conflict, and affairs both international and military, was able to make Obama look very naive on the issue.

Talking about Afghanistan, something Obama has done to this point on the campaign trail with great abandon, opens the Democrat up to a major line of attack: the fact that he hasn’t once convened the Senate subcommittee responsible for overseeing NATO efforts in Afghanistan because, according to his own explanation, he became chairman of that subcommittee around the same time his presidential campaign started — and the latter was far more important to him than the former.

Obama has dropped several buzzwords, from “Three More Brigades to Afghanistan” to “Pressure Pakistan,” into this portion of the debate, but he clearly has no idea what any of those terms actually mean, or how they fit into the scheme of actual world and regional affairs.

As McCain so rightly pointed out just after Obama attempted to defend his call for invading Pakistan (though he refused to admit that’s what it was), even if you do plan to cross a sovereign nation’s borders, based on actionable intelligence, to deal with a terrorist threat, you, as a responsible head of state, don’t say that out loud.

Further, Obama’s attempt to claim that “meeting without precondition” (on Iran) means “meeting if they have met certain requirements” holds as little water as just about anything else he has said during the foreign affairs portion of this debate.

On Georgia — what a win for McCain, who rattled off fact after fact, only to be met by an Obama response that was, in effect, “What he said!”

One thing this debate has shown so far, from their respective comments and behaviors, is that McCain is far more mature and experienced than Obama. Snickering, interrupting, glaring, and motioning to the moderator or to the audience are all juvenile actions of a disrespectful, too-big-for-his-britches know-it-all who believes he is entitled to an office he doesn’t deserve, and who resents actually having to endure debate and — perish the thought! — an election that would allow ordinary Americans to weigh in on his self-declared worthiness for office.

This debate hasn’t been a knockout by any means, but I think McCain has shown that he has knowledge, experience, and judgment that Obama simply can’t match. Further, as the debate has worn on, Obama’s thin skin has become far, far more apparent, and he has been unable to allow McCain to respond to his assertions without talking over and interrupting his far more experienced, far more civil opponent.