"What I said was the same thing that the audience here today heard me say, which is, if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin Laden and take him out, then we should."

"Now, that I think has to be our policy, because they are threatening to kill more Americans," said Barack Obama at the Town Hall Debate, on October 7, 2008.



Meade woke up this morning wanting to look that up. Speaking of things clarified during sleep, I woke up on the morning of October 8, 2008 and "decided to concentrate my mind on the question which man won the debate.... It was Barack Obama...." That was the post where I abandoned my vow of "cruel neutrality" as an observer of the 2008 campaign, and said my vote for Obama was "almost inevitable." After the election, when I analyzed my path of decisionmaking — in the post called "How McCain Lost Me" — I said: "So this was the crucial tipping point. Dear readers, it was right there, the morning after the Town Hall debate."

And now, 2 1/2 years after he voted for McCain, here's Meade, drawn back to that same debate. He IM's me the link to that clip about Pakistan. We talk at some length, and he tells me I made the right decision. So you wish you'd voted for him? Yes.