Quote:
Originally Posted by Arles
I took it as "I'm not really confident enough to stick my neck out and debate him on this, so I will agree and move on to something I feel more comfortable talking about".
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To further clarify, here are the reference to his text (may be more but this is what I could find on first glance). When reading them back, to me it doesn't come across as Obama being unconfident and wanting to move on. In some cases it was used to the contrary:
"Well, I think Senator McCain's absolutely right that we need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there's a crisis."
"Well, Senator McCain is absolutely right that the earmarks process has been abused, which is why I suspended any requests for my home state, whether it was for senior centers or what have you, until we cleaned it up."
"Now, John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he's absolutely right. Here's the problem: There are so many loopholes that have been written into the tax code, oftentimes with support of Senator McCain, that we actually see our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world."
"And, John, I -- you're absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say. But, you know, coming from you, who, you know, in the past has threatened extinction for North Korea and, you know, sung songs about bombing Iran, I don't know, you know, how credible that is."
"No, actually, I think Senator McCain and I agree for the most part on these issues. Obviously, I disagree with this notion that somehow we did not forcefully object to Russians going into Georgia."
He could have used a better selection of word in each case but in hind site it doesn't read like it sounds in sound bites of "I agree."