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Legs or No Legs?

I doubt this will ever be an issue, but a bunch of people are noticing that Obama reads the name of the fallen soldier on his bracelet in this video, see 1:17.

I think it's certainly tasteless to invoke the name of a fallen soldier whose name you can't remember, but not so tasteless it'll become a "George Bush checks his watch" moment like the one in 1988.

Three points:

1. Not enough people noticed to give it legs.

2. McCain himself raises his arm to confirm the name of his fallen soldier. I guess you could say confirming the name of his soldier is better than Obama reading the name of his, and that makes a difference, but I don't think that difference is important.

3. The implication is just too much to bear. The Bush watch moment resonated because it displayed how dismissive Bush was of Dukakis. But is the implication that Obama doesn't care about the deaths of the troops? Or that he's exploiting their deaths for political gain? That seems like a bridge too far.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on September 27, 2008 (boomark / email).