Is This The Line For The Debate Rebate?
First of all, USA 6, Panama 0. Lovely. I know, only I care. Moving on...

I don't know if any of you have ever been to Tempe or to Arizona in general. I lived in Phoenix briefly around 1980-81 and have been back once or twice as an adult. I'm trying to think of the best way to describe the area for you and I keep coming back to two words: flat and brown.

Flat. Brown. Two words that could just as easily describe the last presidential debate last night from Tempe, AZ. Flat. Brown. No notable color, no discernable depth. Lots of stuff we've heard before.

When the information becomes redundant, we turn to the points of style and overall strategy. Of course that's a rationalization because we do that anyway, focusing all on body-language and delivery more than anything either of them have to say. It's like the Miss America pageant really. Who gives a shit what the girls think about world peace in the "interview" competition or whether they can balance spinning plates in the "talent" competition (although plate spinning is awesome)? We want to see the swimsuits! Bring out the swimsuits!

Keeping that in mind, I will try to keep my debate summary as content-free as possible.

Shouldn't be much of a challenge.

The first impression I got was that when Karl Rove was loading up his Commodore 64 with information to feed into the firewire port in the president's back, he apparently had some kind of system crash or file corruption or something because the only thing Bush was able to talk about was education. Bad economy? Education. No jobs? Education. Outsourcing? Education. Racism? Education.

Either that or they just figured "Look, he's got us dead to rights on this jobs thing and we know we can't fall back on this Iraq business, so what do we have? I guess it's education. We've got nothing to show for it really, but we do have the catchy slogan. Yeah. Let's run with that."

So the Secret Service put W on a furniture dolly, wheeled him out there and hoped for the best. You could see that mechanical brain--a wonder of atomic-age science--accessing its hard-drive like crazy. That's what the mad blinking is for, just in case you were wondering. They thought it would be less conspicuous than an LED in the middle of his forehead.

But I would be remiss if I only made fun of one of the incredibly dull candidates.

If you go back and watch, Kerry starts every answer--every one--with the phrase "This administration." As in: "This administration is the first to lose jobs..." "This administration has seen health care costs rise..." "This administration fucked up that Iraq thing real good..."

I wanted Bob Schieffer to throw in a curveball just to see how Kerry would answer it. Something like "Senator Kerry, Boxers or briefs?" to which he would answer "This administration... Boxers, Bob. The boys need to breathe."

Attack, attack, attack. I know that's what you're supposed to do when you're a challenger, but really, it's depressing after a while. They both tried to be upbeat in their closing statements, but Kerry sounded tired and Bush almost crying when he talked about his wife seemed to sap all the life out of him. He mumbled and rushed through what sounded like could have been his most affecting moment of the whole campaign. It was something to do with a painting i'm pretty sure.

Now we come to it: Who won?

There can only be one answer: John McCain. Have you ever seen one politician not in the race get so much goddamn air-time? I like John McCain too, but Jesus. He only gets one vote, fellas. I know Bush has got some bad karma to work off from the 2000 South Carolina primary, but Kerry is just all over the guy's ass. It's enough to make you wonder if McCain might just know which Vietnamese hookers John Kerry got syphilis from and where to find them on short notice or something.

But if there is a winner, there has to be a loser and that is equally clear. The biggest loser of this debate and of the whole campaign is Sen. John Kyl, the other senator from Arizona.

I know, you're thinking to yourself "Who? Wha?" but think about it. McCain is a war hero whose body is a physical testament to his character and courage; he's got the national media and both political parties eating right out of his war-damaged hands. Kerry and Bush spend several minutes of a national presidential debate arguing over who McCain likes better.

I meant to add my own rules of the Debate Drinking Game to my last post when previewing this event. It would have gone like this: If they mention John McCain, take a drink. If they mention John Kyl, snort up a 2-pound bag of cocaine cut with powdered glass. And everyone would have survived.

If I'm John Kyl I'm thinking: Hey, I'm here too. Can't both Arizona's senators be important? Who does a guy have to blow to get a shout-out around here? Y'all know I'm up for re-election in '06, right?

But you, dear reader, along with Yours Truly have no idea who John Kyl is or what he looks like or sounds like, nor do we even care, truth be told. Talk about being a junior senator.

I don't even know how to pronounce his name. Is it like "kyle" as in Showgirls star Kyle MacLachlan or is it "kill" as in "If I were to kill myself right now, the only thing the media would give a damn about was how 'strong' John McCain was as he comforted my widow and orphaned children"?

Anyone know? Anyone?

The poor insignificant bastard.

Oh, if I have to pick one of the people actually running, I would say Kerry "won". I know, predictable, but I'll tell you why: he directly addressed the pay disparity between men and women. $0.76 on the dollar. Forget tax cuts or health care, fix that and you'll have pampered, no-job-having, wife-relying layabouts like me purring like little kittens.

Goddamn patriarchy.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 7.9


Pops

- posted by Pops @ 8:50 AM