"The Grace Notes"

After McCain's disturbingly angry, aggressive demeanor in the final debate, I wrote:

Prediction: immediately after McCain's concession speech, those same supporters who begged him to "take the gloves off" and who praised his performance in last night's debate will note his magnanimity and eloquent introspection in defeat and wonder wistfully "where that John McCain was during the campaign."

Lisa Schiffren, National Review, October 6:

At this point, the McCain campaign’s goal should be to raise doubts about Obama’s trustworthiness, and thus ability to lead...The campaign’s strategy should be to attack from all directions: character, past associations...Tactically, it should have Sarah Palin and surrogates — Giuliani, Gingrich, Romney, Pawlenty, Crist, and Sanford — blast away from a few different angles a day...Attack hard enough to make the American people pay attention...Stop with the "my dear friend" and "I love him, but . . ."

Lisa Schiffren this morning:

I went to bed after John McCain's exceptionally gracious, unusually eloquent concession speech...That speech touched all the grace notes...Was it me, or was the Senator that much more eloquent about the silver linings of his opponent's win than about any other damn thing during this entire two year election cycle?