I’m not sure why this YouTube clip contrasting WFTV-Orlando anchor Barbara West’s interviews with Joe Biden and John McCain makes me so angry. We’ve grown to expect media bias at the cable networks, whether it’s the unabashed right-wingers at FOX News or the liberals at MSNBC. So maybe it’s a little idealistic to still expect integrity and objectivity in our local news anchors.

West’s questions were pulled directly from the Republican Party’s talking points (see the entire interview here), which shouldn’t be surprising considering that her husband is a Republican operative. I don’t have a problem with West or any reporter asking the candidates tough questions, but these were less questions and more accusations.

Compare the way she approached Biden with her earlier interview of McCain, where she literally spoon-fed him big juicy meatballs.

Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas, whom I worked with for several years and who is a pretty middle-of-the road guy politically, had this to say about West:

You have to see this to believe it.

This is the most embarrassing interview I’ve ever seen on local television. This has nothing to do with whether you are for Obama or McCain. It’s about being professional. Quoting Karl Marx?

Even Sean Hannity wouldn’t be so ham-handed. Making matters worse, it looks like Barbara is just dumbly reading questions someone just handed her, then staring blankly at the screen. Biden made her look like a complete dimwit. Not that this was hard.

How could WFTV allow this to happen?

Her tone, her body language and the way the questions were phrased made it very clear that she was hoping she could goad Biden into a gotcha moment. She failed there miserably. But if her mission was to become a hero to the far right, then she succeeded with flying colors.

Unfortunately, she just reinforced the public’s perception that journalists have their own agenda. That’s a shame for the legions of hard-working journalists who are NOT partisan hacks.

Firedoglake has a petiton asking WFTV for an on-air apology. Go sign it. It won’t accomplish anything but it might make you feel better.

John McCain obviously doesn’t understand. Or wait, maybe he does understand but only when it comes to him not being Miss Congeniality. Because, you know, it’s a well-known fact that he’s a maverick, who also happens to be a sheriff but not the new sheriff in town because, well, he’s old. And cranky.

Lucky for us, however, he doesn’t have that presidential seal. He could have some fun with that presidential seal, stamping it all over important documents like his dire warnings two years ago about those misbehaving brats, Fannie and Freddie. Except, well, he didn’t really warn anyone about them, he just signed on to an overhaul bill some 16 months after it was introduced and only then after a critical government report came out. Luckily, John McCain saw the train wreck coming, which was pretty easy because he was riding up front with the engineer where you can be damn certain he wasn’t sending text messages. (Note to McCain: Text messages are like email, which is like a typewritten note, except it’s written on a computer … fuck it. Get Meghan to explain it to you.)

If you need any more proof that McCain was for banking reform, except for all those times he was voting to deregulate the markets, then you just wait because his maverick sidekick is researching the matter and she’s going to get back to us as soon as she can find the right set of index cards.

But jeez, does anyone really care about the facts? McCain doesn’t need the facts, not when he’s known Henry Kissinger for 35 years. Hank, or K-Dogg as John calls him, would never contradict the McCain doctrine of isolationism and unilateralism. Except, well, K-Dogg did when he told an audience at George Washington University last week that he would open up negotiations with Iran without those damn “pre-conditions.” Of course, if I was the president of Iran, I’d set my own pre-conditions, starting with your being able to pronounce my name correctly.

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I was amazed at CNN’s post-debate polling that showed that Obama handily outshone McCain in the debate. I was surprised because I thought the debate was relatively even, with no major gaffes by either candidate. Both stuck to their talking points and both had their moments of stretching the truth and mischaracterizing the other.

But drilling deeper, I think it wasn’t McCain’s message that turned off undecided viewers but the way he delivered it. He largely avoided eye contact with Obama and often seemed constipated. His strategy was to paint Obama as inexperienced when it came to foreign policy and national defense. I’m not sure how many times he used the words “doesn’t understand” when it came to Obama but it was often. I think McCain’s tactic came across as condescending and made him look pretty silly when Obama’s response clearly showed he had a grasp on the issues, even if there was a clear difference in their positions.

The best example came when McCain sneered that Obama didn’t understand the difference between military strategy and tactics. (Hell, even the guys who graduate at the bottom of their class from the U.S. Naval Academy know the difference between strategy and tactics.) The irony is that McCain’s campaign has been all about tactics and very little about strategy.

The Sara Palin gambit, the lipstick on a pig snafu, the decision to suspend his campaign to intercede in the bailout — all those were tactics designed to distract and capture headlines with little thought to how they fit into an overall strategy.

Here’s what some other people are saying about the debate:

Nicole Belle @ Crooks and Liars:

While declining to land any personal blows on John McCain, Barack Obama remained cool, confident and dare I say it?  Presidential in tonight’s debate to John McCain’s Grampy McCrankypants routine.  It appears that the pundits and flash polls agree, as the majority of those polls scored it for Obama, including Frank “The Hair” Luntz’s dial polls on *gasp* FOX News (maybe that’s why they don’t have them up on the website).

Gayle @ Dragon Lady’s Den:

A couple of friends came over and we had margaritas and finger foods, and sat there rather numbly listening to Obama’s rehearsed answers and trying to count how many times he said “uh.” After counting eighty-four “uh’s” from Obama and fourteen “Uh’s” from McCain, I gave it up. To be fair, all of Obama’s “uh’s” weren’t really “uh’s”. He does that stammering thing that’s a bit hard to put into words. It’s something like “eh-eh-er-eh-eh”. Very fast and stacato like.

Stogie @ Saberpoint:

John McCain certainly appeared more knowledgeable and comfortable with foreign policy than did Obama and won that part of the debate, though it was by no means a knock-out. Obama was smooth and spoke well and even somewhat knowledgeably on the issues, though his major premises were often wrong. His belief that we must “be respected” by the socialist/pacifist governments of Europe as essential to foreign policy successes being a case in point. Those governments are well on the way to self-extinction and I do not want the United States to follow them into the dust-bin of history.

From Sanity Injection:

Obama came across as confident, reasonable, and dare I say, Presidential. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. He was obviously very well prepared. By contrast, McCain came across like your cranky grandpa. He seemed to jump from one thought to another before finishing a sentence and got bogged down in details most viewers would have a hard time following.

Josh Marshall @ the Talking Points Memo:

I said above that McCain didn’t have any freak-out moments. But he did have that sneer and there did seem to be this thing where he was so contemptuous and angry at Obama that he couldn’t get himself to make eye contact. I think we’ll hear more about that.

Angry, angry, angry. Part of the key here is that McCain is clearly miffed that he even has to debate or run against Obama. He thinks it’s an insult.

William deB Mills @ Shadowed Forest of World Politics:

However, neither candidate seems capable of rising to the challenge this country faces. Each lacks vision; each seems to buy into the dangerous, arrogant, self-defeating neo-con policy that all who are not with us are against us. I hope I am wrong. I hope Obama is just trying to convince Joe Sixpack that he is a tough guy, and that he will indeed rise to the occasion and grow to become a wise leader if elected. But I fear that this country will sorely miss the kind of open-minded leadership that a Dennis Kucinich or Ralph Nader would have offered. At this point it seems doubtful that either major candidate will have the vision and moral integrity to wash the neo-con poison that has so alienated the world and so empowered al Qua’ida out of American politics.

Richard @ Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot – Over:

Of the two debaters it was clearly Obama who was thinking in the real world while McCain mistakes his years of association with people who made major foreign policy decisions for “experience” and “understanding.” In a complex, dangerous and threatening world, Obama offers cool, focused rationality and an understanding that decisions are made with American self-interest as the first priority. McCain clearly is not even aware that kind of thinking exists.

CNN’s Jonathan Mann @ In the Field:

Speaking of ‘eyes,’ we didn’t see a lot of eye-contact. We’ve received several comments about how little McCain even looked in Obama’s direction. I agree. Obama seemed more interested in what McCain had to say, acknowledging McCain with more respect visually and verbally. He was frequently willing to agree. McCain’s body language and his remarks actually seemed scornful by comparison.

Flickr photo / Tony Buser