The Snore & the Whore

Why do I watch the damn debates? I ask myself that at every one. I'm remembering now those years in the '60s and '70s when we didn't have to endure these debates. Talk about an unrecognized blessing.

These productions are not debates. These are TV theater, and very bad theater at that. I refuse to even acknowledge that these "debates" have a "winner" or "loser." Why? Because I'm basically an idiot for expecting intellectual respectability in addressing serious and crucially important questions. What a joke. First off, rarely is the question posed actually answered. And as for "debate," nothing is contested or explained or examined or understood. The standard fare that the candidates have been dispensing for months is simply chewed again and regurgitated on cue. I just can't take these tired sound bytes seriously, and I wonder how otherwise respectable commentators can sit around and discuss these things with any kind of gravitas whatever.

The "debate" last night, in so-called town meeting format, bored the life out of me. Honestly. Watching paint dry would have been more interesting than a reprise in the round of the same old crap we've been hearing for weeks on end. (And didn't all those people in Sections A through F look like they were having fun?) Which is exactly what we got. By the blessed end of these charades next week, half the country should be able to repeat great swathes of the memorized, but not memorable, talking points from both candidates.

Given the situation the country is in, the worst economic shape ever in the history of our country, not to mention the world shaking on its foundations, the two candidates for president spent all of about 5-6 minutes on the subject. What possibly could be of more relevance and importance than the economic future of the country? But no, we were soon back to a retread of what's by now become stock questions and the same stock answers. Health care, "he's going to raise your taxes," Iraq and frigging surge, and Pakistan. Not that these issues are not important. It's just that the demand for something palatable on television for the near-mindless masses trivializes and debases practically everything that appears on the tube.

I will say this. Barrack Obama is head and shoulders a cooler, more erudite, better informed, and skillful speaker and thinker than John McCain, who always appears on the edge of rage when he's not talking and clumsy when he is. What new thing did we hear? McCain learned everything he knows from a Navy chief? Well, if that's the case, we're really in trouble. But that would be nothing compared to our troubles if John McCain became president of this country. He's a war-monger, every bit as dangerous as the vile little fraud in the White House, if not more so because if, may the gods prevent it, he became president, it would be at a time of unprecedented economic upheaval. And a perfect time to distract the country with another war.

What a whore this man is! An old, lying whore. He would sell off anything to advance himself; he's clearly not stopped at selling off what honor he had and his soul. All of that was on display last night. It's a wonder Obama can sit there and listen to the torrent of lies McCain tells without punching the old bastard in the snoot. He would richly deserve it. Speaking of lies, there's a long piece in Rolling Stone that puts the lie to just about every John McCain myth you've ever heard. The title is the message: "Make Believe Maverick" I commend it; even if it's only half true--and it's got a lot more truth than that--we shouldn't be electing John McCain to a local school board. Take look also at "The Double Talk Express," which will point out nine instances of Mr McCain completely reversing earlier and sometimes admired positions on issues ranging from Bush tax cuts to torture.

Here's a guy who's benefited from a truly benign and, at one point, near-fawning press, a press and media that still doesn't take this guy to task for falsehood. Here's a self-proclaimed "maverick" who has not deviated from party line for years, and who now disavows it all and embraces the nonsense of the noisy Republican right. He needs to be kicked aside so some grownups can take over running the country.