Barack Obama has set the stage for the next debate with his comments stating John McCain is not being man enough to confront him to his face. When I think about what could happen at that debate, my mind keeps drifting off to one of my favorite movie scenes -- the "You can’t handle the truth" scene with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise from "A Few Good Men" -- written by the one and only Aaron Sorkin. Here is my guess as to how next Wednesday's debate is going to sound, when the subject of the smearing of Obama finally comes up.
McCain: You want answers as to why Governor Palin and Cindy have been smearing you?
Obama: Well, I think the voters are entitled to that.
McCain: They want answers?
Obama: They want the truth!
McCain: They can't handle the truth! Boy, we live in a world that no longer has walls. America’s shores have to be guarded by straight men who shoot guns, drive Humvees, and fly fighter jets. Fighter jets like the one I flew over North Vietnam, while you were prancing around in your baby swim trunks in the Hawaiian surf building sand castles with your Muslim parents. Who's gonna defend us? You? You, Senator Obama?
The President of the United States has a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You call for change and you preach for hope. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that my imprisonment in a North Vietnamese prison for those 5 and a half years, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my campaign for the presidency, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you and your treasonous liberal supporters, saves lives...The American voters don't want the truth. Because deep down, while standing in the unemployment lines or while on the phone with their bank trying to explain their late mortgage payments, they want me in the White House. They need me in the White House.
You see, Senator Obama, real men and women, like naval aviators and moose hunters, use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent bombing Gooks and getting laid by people other than our spouses. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man whose multiple black children rise and sleep under the blanket of the very freedom I spent 5 and a half years in a Vietnamese prison defending, then questions the manner in which my supporters smear him! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way, back to Chicago where you belong, with your terrorist cronies and those pathetic Cubs. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, Mr. Obama. Learn to fly a fighter jet. Learn to drive a tank. Learn to shoot something from a helicopter, so you can someday be a patriotic American, like Governor Palin and myself. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to, but it sure is not the White House!
Obama: Did you order the smears?
McCain: (quietly) I'm doing what Steve Schmidt tells me I need to do.
Obama: Did you order the smears?
McCain: You're goddamn right I did!!!