Here's the (now) President-elect during his second debate with Senator McCain:

They are plotting to kill Americans right now. As Secretary Gates, the defense secretary, said, the war against terrorism began in that region and that's where it will end. So part of the reason I think it's so important for us to end the war in Iraq is to be able to get more troops into Afghanistan, put more pressure on the Afghan government to do what it needs to do, eliminate some of the drug trafficking that's funding terrorism.
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And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

Still, it might just be bluster designed to comfort (or even excite) McCain "national security voters" who would never hear Obama speak outside of a joint appearance with their man. I confess I don't know if this was ever part of an Obama stump speech or not.

If so, perhaps the calming influence of folks like Alice Walker will melt his heart of steel (perhaps via the First Lady):

I have sent out a request that Barack Obama, or Michelle Obama, get in touch with me. While waiting for a response (and imagining how busy they must be), I decided to write down my thoughts. After watching the debates between Mr Obama and John McCain, something has leapt out at me. It has now leapt out twice, and I would like to avoid having it appear a third time. It is Mr Obama's statement that, when he is President, he (the US) will pursue al-Qaeda in the hills of Pakistan, find Osama bin Laden and “kill” him. Though I understand that Mr Obama wishes to show himself as “strong”, even “tough”, this is problematic on ethical, moral, and practical levels.

I am not saying the same thing Mr McCain said, about walking and speaking softly and carrying a big stick. We know that during Mr McCain's service to the country there have been countless people assassinated, bombed, disappeared and in other ways destroyed, if not by him directly, then by the system of government that he serves. No, this is about something else: the language we use in leading, and why.

Each time Mr Obama has said “we will kill” Osama bin Laden I have felt a testing of my confidence in his moral leadership. And I support him, and demonstrated that support, to the very limits of my finances and my strength. Could it be that, like millions of children around the globe, who are taught “Thou shalt not kill”, I am reacting with disappointment and shock to someone blatantly declaring their intention to kill a specific person?

This could be it. In a Christian nation, this is what most of us learn. And even if we cease to call ourselves Christians, the notion of non-killing is hard-wired in us. We are not likely to accept the “killer” (even if the killing is done in our defence) with the same open-heartedness and lack of fear that we might have for someone who has not declared for murder. This is why Mr McCain coyly smiled each time Mr Obama made that statement.

We live in a country with a not too distant custom of lynching, particularly in the South. For those of us who are forever aware of this reality, something rises in us whenever there is a manhunt (in my case, even an animal hunt) to demand decent treatment of whoever is captured, and a fair trial. To the surprise of both Mr McCain and Mr Obama, apparently, millions of people in the world don't believe that Osama bin Laden bombed the twin towers and the Pentagon.

But even setting such disbelief aside, we have to think of what we are teaching the youth of the planet.