Oh goody, another debate

Mr. McCain looks like crap in hi-def.

Expectations

I think both candidates probably met or exceeded their party's expectations.

Prediction: tomorrow, folks will be talking about McCain leaving immediately after the debate, and Barack and Michelle hanging out and taking pictures and signing autographs for 20+ minutes.

Just my prediction though. Does kind of show the class of the two candidates -- who's willing to hang out with the "normal" folks and who isn't...

One hour in

Kind of pleasantly surprised that the "debate" hasn't devolved into a shout fest yet, my friends.

But we just started on foreign policy, so McCain might get a bit testy now...

Responsibility

Wow, did you know that health care is your "responsibility"? My friends, you're responsible for your health care. If you fell off your porch, you're "responsible" because you're a gawdam klutz. Mmmkay, my friends? Keep that in mind next time you pay $400 to get a check up.

Retracted

OK, I retract my surprise.

Brokaw says "everybody agrees" that social security and medicare require radical changes to "save" them -- that's just plain wrong.

Although those programs are both expensive, they really aren't in trouble. Any possible "trouble" comes 50+ years in the future, if you use the most conservative estimates.

So my friends (pause to drink) Brokaw does indeed suck balls.

Surprised

So far, I'm pleasantly surprised by the format. I think Brokaw is doing a smidge better than the last two at trying to reign in the candidates. Nobody is more surprised than me.

McCain looks stiff as hell, my friends. And he's rambling a ton, my friends. My friends, McCain likes nuclear energy. Some of my best friends are "my friends."

This guy drives me bonkers.

Update: Not hospitalized yet, though one large martini down, beer commencing forthwith my friends.

The debate "town hall" style

Reminder: This isn't actually going to be a "town hall" -- the questions are either pre-screened by Tom Brokaw, or are just his own questions. This is the same Brokaw who's hacky enough to be the "liason" between the McCain campaign and NBC -- 'cause the campaign of course need help with that darn librul media.

There also is supposedly an agreement that there won't be any followup questions. So, much like last week, the candidates can just choose to ignore the question, ramble on about whatever the hell they want, and the "moderator" isn't supposed to follow up with them.

I am cautiously hopeful that this will exceed my expectations, but if the last two were any indication, those hopes will be dashed.

Update: Brokaw just said that there will be 2 minutes for answers, with 1 minute followup. Not sure, but maybe there's hope.

Wink, wink, winky

I hope McCain winks at me tonight. He's so dreamy.

My drinking phrase is "my friends" so I fully expect to need to be hospitalized by about 10 minutes in.

Maybe McCain should adopt a fake, homey, accent like his running mate, to fool all the gullible rubes.

Oh, and while I don't think it's quite as eloquent (kidding) as my "There's no such thing as "the free market"" post below, Naomi Klein spoke against the creation of an economic research center at the University of Chicago named after the University’s most famous economist, Milton Friedman. Worth the read. She makes a good case that Friedman's free market theories have now been well tested, and should be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Wink, wink

If anybody ever winks at me again, I'm going to poke them in the eye with a pointy stick.

In Fuh Stucture

Seriously. In Fuh Stucture.

If you can't even enunciate simple language, are you actually qualified to lead the country?

In.

Fuh.

Stucture.

Yeah, teh infustucture of merka is vury portant. Golly darn gosh. Durngully. Shux. Reagan sure was great, eh, golly, back in the day when Repub li cans were men and men were woman and Rudy hadn't yet worn a dress. Or something.

Yeah, skip past the Shrub years and hark back to Reagan, that'll work.

Dear god we're doomed, aren't we?

Another martini, squire!

A team of mavericks

Oh for fuck's sake. She just called her and McPain "a team of mavericks" -- if you call yourself a maverick, you're not a maverick. Mmkay?

Why is this race even as close as it is? These people are complete, unadulterated, drooling, morons.

Criminy, now she's "shouting out" to third graders. And doing the whole fake "golly goshdarn shucky gee" crap. This woman is a complete, fucking, idiot.

I never would've thought we could be worse off than we are now, but seriously, the McPain administration would be inconceivably horrendous.

If you're undecided, you're an idiot.

Eye full

For the record: Gwen Ifill is annoying as hell.

Oh, and Bible Action Barbie: it's "new clee ar" although channeling Dubya's "new kew lar" does kind of indicate where you are on the intelligence scale.

Why am I watching this?

Debates

I think we can all agree that the last debate can be summed up as some crazy old dude yelling "Damn kids, get off my lawn!." Which we probably should have predicted.

So, some predictions for tonight's epic adventure between Bible Action Barbie (with new moose fur outfit and convertible Hummer!) and Joe "I like trains" Biden:

• A combination of Barbie's terrible recent "interviews" and obvious complete and utter inability to form a complete thought un-prompted by cue-cards, has caused the expectations of her performance to be lowered to such a level that if she manages to actually get onto the stage, fully dressed, without drooling too much, she'll "win" the debate.
  
  
• Joe Biden must take off his coat, find a puddle to cover with it, bow courteously, offer her a handkerchief, light her cigarette, hold the door for her, buy her dinner (and not expect anything out of it), present her a "Ms. VP 2008" sash and commemorative bouquet of (white) roses, and then back quietly off the stage without answering a single question. If he does anything else, he's a big meany meanypants, liberal elitist who hates women, puppies, and especially hates Joe Sixpack, who he obviously isn't even though his name is Joe.
  

Could we come up with a dumber way to pick our politicians? I don't think we're trying hard enough, the current system is obviously far too dignified.