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October 08, 2008

Live Blogging the Second Presidential Debate

So I’ve decided to write spontaneous thoughts while the debate is taking place. Who knows how this will turn out. It will probably be quite long, like Shaq’s… well, you know.

Tommy Brokaw welcomes the candidates. The old man and the black dude start waving at the audience like a couple of idiots. And we’re off and running…

Brokaw explains that the candidates flipped a coin. I thought the winner would get to sleep with Palin, but it appears that the winner gets to answer the first question first.

The former Bald Guy from Murder One asks the first question: It’s something about the economy. Obama doesn’t say anything new. Wow! McCain goes for a Hail Mary right away. The government will buy all crappy mortgages and negotiate new mortgages at the house’s current value with the government eating the difference. So if I understand this correctly, sounds like if you bought a house worth $200,000 for a million bucks, you can get out from that one million dollar mortgage and get a new one for 200K. Sounds interesting. Surprised McCain didn’t say anything about getting down and dirty with Governor Palin. That’s sure to come. He’s probably saving it.

Follow-up question about who the candidates will appoint as Treasury Secretary. McCain falls flat with a joke about Brokaw not being his selection and then talks about the woman who runs eBay. Obama talks about Warren Buffet supporting him and then goes on a diatribe about helping the middle class and offering a tax cut to the middle class. Warren Buffet is absolutely mesmerizing. Have you seen him interviewed? He’s got such a great personality and an amazing laugh. Back to these two dull jokers…

Time for some guy named Oliver Clark to ask the second question. Oliver wants to know how the bailout will help everyday working folks. McCain passes up the opportunity to make a racial joke (Oliver is black). McCain tells Oliver he probably never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before this crisis. (Is McCain suggesting black men are uneducated/not up on news? I would play that card if I were Obama. I would also give a shout-out to O.J. After all, Palin gave a shout-out to a third grade class, so now there’s precedent for giving shout-outs in debates above the junior high level). McCain goes after Obama’s connections with Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac. Two questions in and the former P.O.W. is already turning negative. Time for Barack to talk to Oliver. He gives a lecture about why the bailout will help free up credit. All I can think is that Bill Clinton would be rocking this question. Obama seems like a cool law professor right now – he’s explaining things, but not really showing a ton of passion. Obama is attacking McCain. Great, the gloves are off. Maybe they will wrestle!!!!

Brokaw with the follow-up: Is the Economy going to get worse? Blah, blah, blah. BOR-ING. Obama doesn’t answer the question. McCain says it depends on what we do. Still no mention by either men about sliding the one-eyed snake in Governor Palin. I find that odd.

Time for some lady who looks like the lady from The Weakest Link to ask a question. My Lord. She stuttered and stammered more than George Bush on a tequila binge. She wants to know why the American public should trust either one of these bozos considering their parties haven’t exactly proven to be disciplined. Obama goes first. I wasn’t paying attention. McCain says he has stood up to his party; Obama never has. John is in attack mode.

Brokaw asks the candidates to rank the following priorities in order of importance: Healthcare, Energy, Entitlement Reform. McCain dodges the question. But he does manage to slip in at least one mention of “my friends.” I’m surprised McCain doesn’t want to talk about fixing social security. With the market getting cremated, seems like a good time to bring up privatizing social security. Obama’s turn: Energy #1 – damn, gas is super expensive in Nashville. Healthcare is #2. Education is #3. Props to Obama for answering the question even if he didn’t really prioritize entitlement reform.

Brokaw tells the candidates to start paying attention to time. He should invoke justice Singapore style. That would speed these bastards up.

Some questions comes in via an old woman over the internet. I didn’t hear the question. McCain starts talking about defense spending and how he saved America money in the past. Takes a jab at Obama. If I were Obama, I would run over and tackle McCain. There’s no way McCain could defend himself right now. His arms don’t go above his head and he’s almost thirty years older. Instead, Obama looks weak. He just sits there. Obama: “You know, a lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11 and where you were that day.” A LOT of the people remember the tragedy of 9/11? A LOT? Who the hell didn’t remember the tragedy of 9/11? Terry Schiavo missed out on that one, but I’m struggling to think of other people who were alive and don’t remember that day. I suppose some children who were infants. Other than that, I would venture to say ALL of the people remember the tragedy of 9/11. I wish Obama would follow this up by saying, “Look, every women who’s had my pecker in her remembers it.” Then he should just sit down. Again, he’s showing weakness by not talking about what people want to hear. Obama talks about how young people want to serve. That’s why he’s going to enlarge the Peace Corps. Does anyone actually know anyone who did a stint in the Peace Corps and got anything out of it? I don’t. Doesn’t seem like we really accomplish much with the Peace Corps, but I certainly could be wrong.

Brokaw says something about getting drunk. Would be a good time for both candidates to talk about George W. Bush’s past drinking record. Obama ought to say, “Look, President Bush admitted to being a drunk. Senator McCain has voted with George W. Bush 95% of the time. That means, Senator McCain has been drunk 95% of the time George W. Bush has been drunk.” Obama asks why a teacher who makes 35K should tighten her belt when fat cats don’t have to do the same? The simple answer, of course, is to ensure that her frickin pants stay on. I mean, sure, if she wants her pants off, God bless her, but if she wants to keep them (and the panties) on, then a belt is an excellent idea. Not sure I totally comprehended the question.

McCain has a good line about nailing Obama’s tax programs to the wall being like Jello. AH, there you go, Johnny M! He gets it all back to race by mentioning Jello! Who was the main spokesman for Jello? That’s right. BILL COSBY! And who is rumored to have funded O.J. Simpson’s murder defense way back when? YUP, BILL COSBY! McCain goes on the offensive, going after white voters. It’s not pretty, but at this point, he doesn’t have much to lose by playing the race card.

We’re 35 minutes in, and neither candidate has mentioned anything about erect penises. Obama is pissed about something with McCain and wants to respond to something McCain said, but Brokaw says, “NO SOUP FOR YOU!” Well, he didn’t exactly say that, but his meaning was clear – the Big O will not get a chance to speak on this point.

Oh good, Brokaw wants to talk about reforming social security and Medicare since both will be complete drains on our country as the baby boomers start retiring. He wants to know how we will fix those things. Obama starts talking about not raising taxes. He wants the tax policies to be right so people can get healthcare. McCain says it isn’t hard to fix social security. (Oh really?) He starts talking about Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill. Both dead, by the way. He says it’s easy to fix social security, but doesn’t explain how. For Medicare, he wants to have a commission make recommendations and get Congress to vote up and down. Another good opportunity for Obama to tackle McCain while McCain attacks Obama, and another example of Obama not doing anything. WEAK.

Next Question – 40 minutes in is from some woman named Ingrid. Ingrid wants Congress to move fast on environmental issues. In a surprising move, McCain refuses to answer the question, saying he doesn’t want to answer questions from a black woman. Risky move – I don’t think that will help him at all. Time will tell. (Okay, he didn’t do that, but it would have jazzed this debate up a bit. My God, so far it’s like watching Stephen Hawking playing ping-pong against a Chinese teenager. Actually, that might be pretty interesting. This, on the other hand, is absolutely boring.) I missed McCain’s response, but he’s talking about Nuclear Power. Obviously the smart thing would be to talk about Homer Simpson (average Joes know who he is), but McCain doesn’t do that. Sarah P. would. Obama’s turn. He attacks McCain after talking about other stuff. Obama doesn’t like Fossil Fuels. I used to own quite a few Fossil watches. I don’t own any anymore. In fact, I rarely wear a watch.

Brokaw starts talking about the red-yellow-green lights on stage. Did you know a black man invented the traffic light? I learned that watching a commercial during Black History Month when I was barely in the double digit years!

The people in this audience are completely lifeless. Where did they find these people? How come no one is chanting, holding up signs, streaking? BOR-ING!

Lindsey Something asks a question. She’s too old to be named Lindsey, yet she’s pretty good looking for her age. Way to uphold the strong tradition of Lindseys being good looking! Something about health insurance. I’m bored with health insurance. Thus, I will now go urinate. Thank God I didn’t eat asparagus recently. That’s the worst! I mean it’s cool when you’re in a public restroom or at work because you can ensure that someone next to you has to get a whiff. But when you live by yourself, there’s no advantage to having asparagus-smelling urine. Maybe I’ll run for president one day.

Doesn’t Obama look a little like Ernie from Sesame Street?

I wonder if this blog entry is as boring as this debate. Hope not. If it is, I’m sorry.

At nearly the hour mark, some dude named Phil asks about the economy. He wants to know about economic stress and our role as a peacemaker in the world.

If McCain needs to win this debate or at least land a knockout blow, let me be the first one to say he’s not achieving that goal. He’s come across as a surly old man a few times, and that doesn’t seem like a good image for him.

I had free chocolate cake earlier. That was nice even though I don’t really like chocolate that much. Of course, it’s good with vanilla ice cream.

You know what’s amazing about these town hall forums? I don’t recall seeing any “prank questions.” If I were there, I obviously would have my prepared/pre-approved/pre-screened/pre-selected question on my little note-card, but would I ask it? HELL NO! I think it would be much more fun to ask something like: “Senator Obama, how many times have you called out Governor Palin’s name while you’ve been inside Michelle?” This is all live, so what the hell would they do? Actually, maybe it’s on a very slight delay. I still think you could get the question out, and if you did and it got televised, that would be GREAT!

Obama: Screw Pakistan; we’ll do what we need to do.

McCain: Has no idea what the questioner’s name is. Does bring up a good point about not announcing to your allies/enemies what your intentions are in war. Says you want to carry a big stick. Obama misses an opportunity to point out that his stick, statistically, is almost guaranteed to be bigger than McCain’s. Obama should say, “Look, let’s settle this right now. John, drop your pants, and if you can’t drop them because your arms are all messed up from your days as a prisoner, then I’ll take them off for you!” At this point, Obama could tackle McCain, yank his pants down, and then hold McCain up so everyone could see McCain’s pepe. Then Obama could drop his pants and exclaim, “Look at this! That’s right. Michelle calls me Anaconda for a REASON!” Then he could turn to Mrs. McCain and say, “Cindy, you want a piece of this?”

Oh, as an aside, I just read that Elgin Baylor is out as General Manager of the Los Angeles Clippers after 22 years. The Clippers made the playoffs FOUR times in those 22 years. FOUR times. Can’t imagine why they fired the man. I mean, he did such a good job.

They’re talking about Russia, and I’m bored. I need to poop.

I agree with Obama that we need to talk to our enemies. McCain seems so caught up with the fact that Obama would talk to Iran. GOOD! We SHOULD talk to Iran. And we should talk to all of our enemies. And who knows, maybe SOMETHING could be worked out. And if not, then we can kick their asses, but my God, you’ve got to talk first. Can you imagine having marital problems and just waking up one day and saying, “We’re getting divorced,” without every trying to work things out with your spouse first?

And it’s over. Thank God. It was boring, and McCain did nothing to move the polls. At least, I don’t think he did. Do you?

Posted by fool on October 8, 2008 12:52 AM

Comments

Posted by: Harmless Error at October 8, 2008 08:05 AM

Posted by: Philosofer at October 8, 2008 11:26 AM

Posted by: Wiseazzz at October 8, 2008 02:37 PM

Posted by: LisaBinDaCity at October 8, 2008 02:54 PM

Posted by: mspinkslip at October 9, 2008 01:46 AM

Posted by: teahouseblossom at October 9, 2008 10:39 PM

Posted by: Fool at October 9, 2008 10:47 PM

Posted by: movie fan at October 10, 2008 12:20 PM

Posted by: Danielson at October 11, 2008 11:11 PM

Posted by: Fool at October 12, 2008 12:05 AM