Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Pre-(?)Debate Open Thread

Happy Friday, Folks!

It is less than nine hours to the first Presidential Debate as I write this, an event that will (or won’t) be watched by what has been forecast to be 100M people and will (or won’t) be the first chance for Americans and the world to hear how the two (or one) Presidential candidates handle direct questions together (or alone).  3,000 journalists are gathered in Mississippi wondering what they will reporting on.

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The “Bailout” deal is (or isn’t) coming together, House Republicans are (or are not) planning their own Palace Coup and banks are (are) still going under.

Prepare to speak liberally.

Darts, anyone?

UPDATE by BRIT (now he and Jerome are best buddies he’s exploiting his dark side powers): it’s on.

No darts. Only searing arrows of acute insight


85 comments

    • I hope McCain is well rested.  As competitive as I am, it’s painful watching someone completely fall apart in a public setting.

      DON’T THINK ABOUT PALIN AND CURIC, JOHN!  Whatever you do, DON’T THINK ABOUT THE LAST 48 HOURS OF MEDIA COVERAGE!!!  Everything will be OK just as long as you don’t think about the massive political capital you just lost at the “campaign suspension” craps table!!!

      (oh yeah, you don’t want to tell me you need to pee when you can’t, either… :~).

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  1. Sealed the deal.  Let’s face it – he took away a lot of McCain votes in the primaries, and when he said that McCain was making a mistake, there are a lot of (R) voters that, I think, would have listened.

  2. spacemanspiff

    You done made us proud son.

    Q: How many Republicans does it take to screw in a light bulb?

    A: Four hundred and seventy one:

    12 to investigate Obama’s involvement in the failure of the old bulb;

    23 to deregulate the light bulb industry;

    16 to cut funding for alternative lighting R&D;

    34 to cut the marginal tax rate on high-wattage light bulbs;

    9 to threaten trade sanctions if Germany and Japan don’t start buying more 110-volt bulbs.

    53 to design a block grant so the states can change the bulb;

    41 to chat with defence contractors about equipping everyone in the building with night-vision gear instead;

    And 283 to pass a law making it illegal to discuss naked bulbs, or screwing anything, on the Internet.

  3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/

    Anyone care to pontificate?  

    McCain wins what debate, exactly?  Why would it be up today?  It this a Photoshop deal? There’s speculation that it’s a badly released web ad, and it’s “proof” that McCain had no real plans to cancel, but I just think it’s bizarre.  

  4. schurchwell

    this week is Frank Capra on crystal meth. Mr McCain Goes to Washington … I have only just caught up online (work is SO distracting during this madcap election season!), and whistle-stop toured Couric, Palin’s enlightening explanation of good guys and bad guys (and can anyone explain why the CBS link doesn’t show Couric’s coda, in which she confirmed that they checked with Kissinger, and he’s cool with diplomacy without preconditions? Not that he’s exactly my political standard-bearer, but certainly naive isn’t a word I’d use to describe him), Letterman (wow he was pissed off), and Jon Stewart, who let Clinton a little far off the hook for my taste, but I thought it was cute how they kept holding hands. Anyway, this is all by way of saying that I’m staying in tonight and packing for parts foreign, and looking forward to a liveblog if I can stay awake that long (at 6 am GMT I was already getting alternately patronized, ignored, and sneered at by an interrupting right-wing free-market apologist on radio five live, so I’ve done my bit for the cause today). What I really want to know is, am I the only one who’s nervous about tonight?

  5. sricki

    Going to get drunk and sit online like the cool cat I am. It’s got to be indicative of something almost pathological that I’m this psyched about watching a debate. Can’t wait to see Barack put a vicious smackdown on poor geezer.

  6. schurchwell

    I’m online as a devoted democrat trying to get detail on the debate and the debacle and I just got another email from democrats.org, which invariably address me as “Sarah.”

    ‘Sarah’ —

    Now that John McCain has decided to participate in tonight’s debate, don’t forget to tune in and watch at 9:00 p.m. EDT.

    I know I’m a freakish Ivy League PhD AND a media elite (although I always thought elites were rich) all of whose issues are definitionally out of touch with those of small town Republican illiterates. But. I hate that my party thinks I’m not a real person, and addresses its core voters in scare quotes. I’m not an avatar, I’m not an ironic concept of a citizen, I’m an actual registered voter, and they address me as a slightly dubious concept about which they are patently suspicious. And the irony is that this email came from “Joe Biden,” which really is “Joe Biden” cause I’m pretty sure Joe Biden didn’t write it. But he gets to be a real person and I remain a hypothetical concept. I know I’m a pedant and Lynne Truss’s love child (not really, Lynne, don’t worry) but this really irritates me. I’m cross. Take me out of the damn scare quotes. Acknowledge your voters’ reality.

  7. GrassrootsOrganizer

    My first debate was between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.  My friend’s dad was a true bleeding heart liberal.  They bought us marshmellow peanuts and Dum-Dum suckers to throw at the TV when one or the other said something stupid. We booed and hissed and it was a complete silly party even though we were n college at the time.  

    Gerry was such a benign Republican it’s wistful now to think of throwing anything at the poor sap.    

    Tonight I’d have to use flowers and bricks.  If Obama screws up? I might just run out into traffic.  

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