Now that ye old scribe has had an opportunity to sit through the debate a second time, some further thoughts.

First, nearly everybody and his brother or sister will (rightly) be shining a spotlight on Sen. McCain’s patronizing air quotes on the “health” (his teminology) of pregnant women.

But bear along for just a bit, and let’s focus on something which this voter found equally objectionable.

That is John McCain’s statement of “We have to change the culture.”

Taken in the context of the venue, the question and the conversation, who is “we?”

One can immediately discount that he was speaking about the American people as “we” as, within our political system and history, the American culture (amorphous as it may be) at any given point in time is, by definition, a function of, derived from and subject to the ebb and flow of change, design, alteration and even revision through trial and error by the building blocks of the people.

Did he mean by “we,” perhaps, Republicans? Conservatives? An evangelitist clique? A blue ribbon commission? Again, taking the statement purely within the context of the argument, one has to also logically say no. Clearly (and one hopes also correctly) he did not have intend to brazenly call for top-down imposition of what and what not constitutes and defines American culture, so let’s discount those possibilities as well.

What is left then is that he meant “The government has to change the culture.”

That, ye old scribe puts it to you, is not and was not an intended function of the American government, its structure, its place and purpose, and its operation as power in service to and at the behest of its people.

Ye old scribe wishes to posit that government’s intended role is to respond to the culture, not to dictate it or limit it to a preconceived mold.

Rather than get long-winded about it, shall give a quick example.

It took 144 years — from 1776 to 1920 — but as the culture evolved, as it tempered and re-thought views, outlook and traditions as a culture on the position in society, abilities and status of women, the government responded by eventually changing the structure and focus of itself, culminating in granting women access to the vote.