the debate

I am no political blogger, but I'm going to sit here and spew random thoughts during the debate anyway.

This debate is so different from the last presidential debate I watched, in 2004. Back then, I was a senior at Northwestern, and Kevin/Joey/Erik/Pedro were having a debate-watching gathering at their place on Hinman and Davis. Dear god, was that debate boring... but why was it boring? It shouldn't have been boring- it was the fate of the next four years hanging in the balance, another four years of Bush vs. a much needed breath of fresh air- but it was. It was so boring that Pedro and Kevin took to switching between channels to see whether CNN or MSNBC had better color saturation (hey, we were film geeks).

But this debate isn't boring. This debate makes me want to turn the tv off just so I don't have to watch McCain treating Obama like he doesn't exist. It makes me wish I was there in the audience so I could stand up and yell at McCain, to hell with getting arrested (not that I would really have the guts to do that, but I would definitely think about it and maybe even imagine myself doing it!). It makes me glad that Obama's team knew enough about television to choose a tie with a pattern that doesn't moray, while McCain's team clearly has never seen a television before and therefore stuck him in a ugly striped tie that goes rainbow every time he moves, and quiety hums when he doesn't.

Ha! McCain just mispronounced both Ahmadinejad and Perestroika. Excellent.

Obama has frequently addressed McCain directly, as Jim Lehrer requested, but McCain is not returning the favor in kind. What a sniveling little fuckbucket- oh oops, should I not say that? This is why I couldn't be a political blogger. McCain has interrupted Lehrer, and of course Obama, multiple times. He cleary has no respect for Obama and won't even look in his direction. It's infuriating. He also keeps talking about all the old politicians he knows.

This whole thing is a giant clusterfuck of Obama trying to set the record straight and McCain just blazing ahead and saying whatever he wants, be it fact or fiction.

It's pretty funny nowadays whenever anything involving Joe Lieberman is referred to as "bipartisan." I suppose in the days after 9/11, Joe Lieberman was still an actual democrat, but damned if hindsight isn't 20/20... a mere 7 years later he's speaking at the RNC.

I like that the little "audience response" lines at the bottom of the screen dip WAY down- both the democratic and the independent lines, mind you- when Obama stops talking and McCain starts. And the red line doesn't do much.

I for one am REALLY looking forward to the Vice Presidental debate.