I liked McCain’s speech in Virginia Beach yesterday.

It wasn’t the most partisan of speeches, but together with his vigorous defense of his supporters on liberal CNN, it showed, unlike the performance of the McCain we saw in the debates, that the old sailor may still have some of the fight left in him.

The only question is if this fighter will show up at the debate tomorrow – to take it to Barack Obama, or if it will once again be his notoriously kill-shy “Bipartisan” doppelganger. Personally, at this point, right now, I think believing that the former would turn up is a triumph of hope over experience …

To whit, after two debates with McCain the “Bipartisan“, Barack Obama is very obviously feeling good about tomorrow – so good that he’s even letting loose with some trash talk …

“I am surprised that, you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days, that he wasn’t willing to say … to my face,” Obama said.

In case that’s unclear, that’s Obama using the more gentlemanly sounding Senatorese to call McCain a “punk-@$$ b%tch!” …

McCain apparently got wind of the slap and responded …

“I was astonished to hear him say that he was surprised that I didn’t have the guts” to bring up Ayers, McCain said on KMOX, a St. Louis radio station.

Me? I read this and wonder if the cause of McCain’s astonishment was Obama being surprised that he would be a harmless little kitten when they met, or really that he astonished that Obama was actually questioning his “guts“.

The debate tomorrow at Hofstra University would settle the issue in my mind. Quite frankly, the man telling us to “Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight …!“ needs to show how us how it’s done tomorrow.

Because if John McCain once again passes over the katanas to pick up the butter knives, then Obama would be right. And, yeah … he, Barack H. Obama, will almost certainly be the next President of the United States.