OK, so where are you slackers hiding? Prolly secretly hoping Palin stops by to pay y’uns a visit. Goddamn Starburst Band out here ...

I have to confess a past association. I once knew someone who was related to someone who play Patti Hearst in a movie. Sorry. It was 30 years ago.

How about John McCain? Hehhh? Hyehh? Hyehh?

I’m in…and I apologize for being absent the last couple of days.

For whatever reason, my day-job as a transplant organ farm tends to be seasonal, and there’s always a big run on spare parts in the fall.

McCain ... sheesh ... I think he’s gonna call for the firing of the guy who asked the question

MY FRIENDS ..... GULP!!!

MY FRIENDS again .... GULP!!!

Strange, can you get some hair for McCain, and maybe a new epidermis?

Brokaw reminds them that they signed off on the rules. What a dumbass. Tom Brokaw ... the greatest failure. I hate Tom Brokaw, and he loves John McCain.

McCain is first to use the word “cronies.”

We’re heading for the toilet already.

McCain has the stage presence of a funeral-home greeter. I thought this was his preferred showcase, but I’m not seeing the magic.

Did they sedate McCain or something?

That’s because it’s always been bullshit Strange, it’s a creation of the media taken in durting 2000/.

He’s stiff. He looks about 80 years older than Bob Barker on his last day of Price is Right (with all apologies to Bob Barker).

But I dunno, maybe that’ll go over with the undecideds.

We’re the best importers in the world?  Or did I hear that wrong?

McCain has been in govt for 26 years, Obama on the natl level 4, so cranky ol’ dumbshit wants to know who she can trust. This is 8th grade bullshit.

He looks about 80 years older than Bob Barker

Oh please, Barack, please refer to McCain as Bob Barker.

I’m a fucking MAVERICK!!!  in a manner of speaking…

Yes, Ripley, we import the HELL out of everyone else, and we factory-train more import technicians annually than any other country on earth.

I know a LOT of guys who work the import line down at the plant, and they are the salt of the earth.

Pork barrel earmarks like funding the VA, right, Johnny?

Fuck planetarium projectors! Fuck science! Knowledge is for old-women and bedwetters!

Privatize!  Did you know I was a POW and a maverick?

What’s the order of priority?

MCCAIN’S ANSWER: All at once.

Very thoughtful.

Good answer - energy & health care first

And then he mumbles.

Sacrifice the wolves in Alaska. Hyehhhhh?

Definitely, John seems like he’s gasping for breath, and he’s moving around like a damaged robot.

Content be damned—Obama seems young, confident and engaged. J-Mac wants to project earnest seriousness, but he’s coming across as they guy who had to explain to the passengers on the Titanic why there weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone.

Jesus fucking christ waving a white flag ... enough with the fucking earmarks already you blithering old fart. Fuck earmarks pay for my roads, for my county’s schools and for health care. So fuck off you cretin, and I mean that lovingly.

Oh, and if he badmouths planetarium equipment one more time, I’m going to punch the screen.

Obama? Fuck you and your clean coal bullshit. Motherfuckers still have to dig it up, and lemme tell ya Mr. Harvard pants, there aint no goddamned thing about that that is clean.

They both kind of glanced off that sacrifice question

Here we go.  Johnny lying about the tax plan.  What took so long?

WTF Brokaw?

Yeah, no good answers on sacrifice.

However, J-Mac is doing a tremendous impression of William Loman…which is not what he wants to be doing.

Sorry. I meant “Willy Loman.” attention has been paid.

Yeah, that health care tax credit McCain’s offering sucks. Goodbye work-provided health insurance. Hello shitty insurance that covers nothing. I’m hoping Obama’s going back to that.

Obama is back to the 40-second wind-ups that hurt his performance in primary debates. Tighten it up, Barack

That’s a quote from the GOS ... what the fuck is this social security is in trouble bullshit? Fuck, how many times do we have to hear the same old bullshit?

Fuck that maverick bullshit.  What the hell has he ever actually done?  Christ…

Fuck your vision, pally!

Has McCain really answered a question?

Nope.

Yes, he answered every question: “CUT SPENDING” (except for defense)

I was on a ship that used nuclear power ... and when it had a catastrophic fire I ran downstairs and hid out while my plane’s captain burned to death. Then I took some much needed R&R;in Saigon. So fuck you America.

I think the majority of this tax discussion is going to come across as a spreading fog to the average viewer. Sort of like Gore and Bush going at each other about school vouchers.

I’m grading on an impressionist scale. McCain seems needy and grasping. Obama isn’t pleading. I know which one I;d buy a used car from.

Yeah, but Obama said “um”!

McCain is making my ears bleed.

This has bogged down into wonky bullshit, I agree Strange ... in fact, it’s infuriating because this shit doesn’t do a goddamned thing to change the conversation. The talking heads will drone on and on about how they got stuck on dry tax and budget issues.

100,000 garages FTW!

Fuck you, my friend!

That one?

Do you mean the nigger senator McCain?

Fuck you, you’re not drilling off my coast you incontinent shitbird.

I was on a ship that used nuclear power ... and when it had a catastrophic fire I ran downstairs and hid out while my plane’s captain burned to death.

Come now, he watched it all on the closed circuit TV down below!  I’m sure he cared as he watched them all burn.

From Think Progress ...

9:40: Brokaw editorialized that we can all agree in a “bipartisan way” that entitlement programs are “a big ticking time bomb.” In fact, in 2005 – as President Bush tried to “reform” Social Security with a privatization scheme – “barely one in four Americans believe[d] that a crisis exists.” (UPDATE: As Paul Krugman explains, “No matter how many times you try to kill the mythical Social Security crisis, it just keeps coming back.”)

The fucking question was about what government would do? Is it just me? Am I as stupid as I seem?

McCain doesn’t understand how the insurance industry works.

Obama keeps looking at McCain like a kid who just poured a box of Sea Monkeys into a fish-tank. It’s like he’s waiting for J-Mac to give birth to a chest-burster.

McCain’s always concerned about govt mandates ... excepot for the one that has given him govt health care from the time his momma squeezed his dumb ass out.

9:54: McCain said he would give every family a $5,000 tax credit to buy health insurance. But McCain’s credit would not cover the average price of a family health care plan. According to the latest Kaiser Foundation Benefits Survey, “premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to $12,680 annually for family coverage” in 2008.

More TP

I like how McCain praised the French on nuclear power.  Everyone’s supposed to hate the French, silly!

Yes!  Crack down on the insurance companies.  Good one!

Obama probably shouldn’t have mentioned Delaware. ;-(

Yeah, like that great Soviet economy of the last 100 years.

Obama aced that health insurance question. I think the tax issue was a bit muddy—maybe a little over the head of some viewers—but I think he won the health care round.

I wonder if he’ll tell us he knows how to win wars.

Bam!  Take the gloves off, brother!

Another thing, if I hear one more time about how Obama is tight with terrorists and their suppoerters, I’m going to get arrested when I start flashing those loving pics of Bush with his cousins from Saudi Arabia.

You’ve heard of saudi Arabia, home to Islam and the birthplace of 19 men who flew planes in to the WTC.

ETHNIC CLEANSING IS HOW THE FUCKING SURGE WORKED YOU NIMROD!!!

I thought the surge worked because we handed out free cash.

Christ, Maliki wants a date for withdrawal.  The damned Bush administration is setting timetables to pull troops out.

Fucker!

McCain needs pudding. Please get him pudding.

Please?

The motherfucker’s more worried about his legacy than Bush is.  Jeebus…

My subjective ruling: America is watching Dwight Frye (as Renfield) debate Sidney Poitier (circa “Lillies of the Field”). This not going to help McCain.

After the first 10-12 repetitions, “my friends” is really sounding like Kriswell’s opening monologue to “Plan 9.”

Nikkei down 460, for you end-of-the-world observers.

After the first 10-12 repetitions, “my friends” is really sounding like Kriswell’s opening monologue to “Plan 9.”

That’s because you can hear the fatigue and it manifests itself in repetition. McCain was very nervous, it was obvious in his short breaths and hurried answers. In fact, he’s making less and less sense as this goes on.

He’s lost his fucking mind.

The motherfucker’s more worried about his legacy than Bush is.  Jeebus

…

Spot on.

Food fight on follow-ups! Gobama!

Nooooo, don’t get dragged down into the Pakistan thing, damnit!

Hit him again, Barack!  Again!

Obama is kicking the old fucker’s ass now.

Bomb bomb bomb Iran! Annihilation of North Korea!

Yo mama, J-Mac!

Grandpa’s getting defensive.

I fucking knew!!! he’d fall back on “I know how to…”

Really, John?  How?  How do you know these things?

Because he remembers Pearl Harbor.

Criswell or McCain? You make the call:

“Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown… the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you, the full story of what happened on that fateful day. We are bringing you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony, of the miserable souls, who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, the places. My friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space?”

LMAO

The fuck?  Does McCain ever read a newspaper?  Has he been sleeping the last eight years?

That’s fucking funny strange.

Also, let me tell you why this Afghani talk is pure bunkum. Those motherfuckers are the baddest asses this side of the IDF. You’re not gonna control Afghanistan, no one ever could and no shit spewed out by either of these two clowns is gonna change that fact. Bush has fucked us all so hard we’re gonna be talking about this bullshit for the next decade ... and beyond.

Oh, yeah. Invading Georgia was totally out-of-bounds for nations that should respect the idea of sovereignty. Alert the Irony Police.

Don’t worry about Putin. Sarah Palin is watching him from Wasilla.

GOS is saying that CNN’s live graph is giving the debate to Obama.  Huzzah!

This is absurd. Utterly absurd. Gte off the oil and the Middle East problems go away. Stay with the oil and we’re still owned by the Saudi Caliphate.

Humboldt—I agree. So does the Pentagon. These are guys who gave Alexander the Great a run for his money. And McCain should know, because he’s been there, and he knew Alexander.

Maybe hehhhhehehe?

Hhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Grandpa farted ... he’s so funny.

more from TP ...

10:06: McCain just said that if we’d withdrawn from Iraq, Iranian influence would have increased and Al Qaeda would have set up a base. Both of these things happened because we invaded Iraq.

10:03: Discussing when to intervene militarily, McCain mentioned Kosovo. Back in 2000, McCain referred to the conduct of the Kosovo intervention as “the most obscene chapter in recent American history.”

Motherfucker I was a goddamned 11 Bravo, fuck you and your thank you’s, we don’t want thank you’s we want sane, rational leaders and at this point Grandpa Screaming at the Clouds, .... motherfucking piece of shit.

McCain on Israel/Iran: “Fuck if I know.”

God, if I hear the word ‘precondition’ one more time this year…

Didn’t answer the question, did he?

Neither of them did

Obama: “Ditto.” The Curse of AIPAC strikes again.

The obvious answer is that we should flood Iran with degenerate rock’n'roll music and copies of Maxim, so that we can destroy them from within.

Can McCain squeeze Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright into his answer?  Bets?

I’d add pancakes on a stick ... Paula Deen, Madonna, Andy dick, Creed, Toby Keith, Lady de Shit For Brains and Pet Rocks.

“Without preconditions?” DID HE JUST SAY WITHOUT PRECONDITIONS? Holy SHIT! I’m assuming the drop, duck, and hide my head under my hands beneath my desk position. I didn’t know that! I’m changing my vote to McCain!

Man, Ican only hope that McCain whips out the fake COLB and the “whitey” tape, right here and now.

I know what all of us don’t know ... oh fucking jesus

Grandpa farted again.

We’re DOOMED, Lady P - DOOOMED!

He’ll put us back in the fight. OMFG. What an worthless piece of shit.

Good God. The last time I met a man who sounded like John McCain right now, he was begging to blow me in the Greyhound Station.

Other than hastening my beer consumption, that was a waste of time.

I scored it Obama 143, McCain 0.

Great, here comes Brooks…

I scored it Obama 143, McCain 0.

Commie.

Goodnight Mr. Obama! Goodnight, Bob Barker’s great-great-grandfather! Now for the analysis.

poputonian—I concur. It was a rout.

I mean, am I the only one who thought McCain was downright CREEPY, like a paid griever?

McCain could have stayed home.  Or rushed off to some other city to act Presidential !

It was never going to be close. McCain sounded the same trumpets, beat a tattoo on the same drums and appeared as he always does, a man whose ambitions far outstrip his qualifications.

Hmm ... seems like I’ve seen that somewhere before.

RussD—Thanks for endeavoring to be impartial.

Michael Gerson calls it for McCain.  Well, that’s that I guess.  Might as well stay home on Nov 4.

McCain is a sick creepy fuck. PTSD couple with the onset of dementia.

My feeling is that they’ll all say McCain won, because it’s in the media’s interest to even the race out. I have no idea what the undecided voters will say. They baffle me.

The other day a friend told me he mixed watermelon vodka and coffee and drank a whole glass. I asked him why, and he said he wanted liquor and coffee both. I asked what it tasted like, and he said, it was all he could do while he drank it not to vomit it back up. I said, why didn’t you just enjoy them separately? And he said, he just really wanted liquor and coffee in one drink.

That is what I think of the undecided voter: I’ll just never understand.

OK, one other thing, this whole pairing of Maddow and Racist Buchanan might be cute for those in the new biz, but it’s a travesty for the watching audience.

I didn’t catch the language at the moment.  Did McCain actually call Obama ‘that one’?

pairing of Maddow and Racist Buchanan

Couldn’t agree more. I switched to CNN the moment she said my friend Pat Buchanan. Of course, you know what CNN stands for.

Yes, Ripley, he did.

Ripley,

Oh yes he did.

I didn’t catch the language at the moment.  Did McCain actually call Obama ‘that one’?

Fuck yeah he did, and he was looking the other way when he said it and casually stuck his finger in Obama’s direction while he said it.

Jeebus… he needs some serious medical evaluation.

Fuck. Darragh Murphy’s Poop-Flinging Monkey House of Terror calls the debate 100% for McCain.

I guess I was wrong. Never mind.

poll on msnbc

McCain farted twice, Obama zero.

That’s weird, the poll on newsvine is the msnbc poll and it let me vote again.

Oopsie.

When I saw Puffy McJowls refer to Obama as “that one”, I started wondering how long it’d be until he said “you people”.  I guess he’s saving that one for the next debate.

Someone please stuff something down David Gregory’s throat. He’s carrying McCain’s water on his mortgage relief suggestion.

That MSNBC poll is running 85-89% for Obama.

Puffy McJowl

Love it. Alvin the Chipmunk in old age.

That’s it. I’m voting for McCain because he calls me “friend,” and Obama is a Kenyan citizen.

Olbermann leads off with a “that one” reference.

Drudge has it down cold for McCain. I just joined PUMA and started signing my emails with a file photo of an angry kitten.

I suggest we all face the fact that John McCain was a supercharged dynamo of conviction and irrefutable fact tonight, as well as an American hero and a guy who really knows how to bag rich models. And besides, Barry’s a Muslim who hangs out with unrepentant terrorists.

And that’s not even counting the incredible Wowee! factor that is Sarah Palin.

Drudge has it down cold for McCain

I am shocked and amazed at this turn of events! :-|

This one is on TPM.  Watch the classy McCain in action:

And besides, Barry’s a Muslim who hangs out with unrepentant terrorists.

And don’t forget his personal endowment, which makes many Republicans look bad.

I think Obama won handily (with no claims to objectivity, naturally). Things that stuck out in my mind: McCain’s repeated “I know how to do…” XYZ. Winning a war, getting Osama, dealing with the economy, working in a bipartisan manner—whatever the topic, his refrain is that He. Knows. How. Extremely paternalistic.

Obama’s big moment in my opinion was the response on the Pakistan issue. McCain set himself up for it with the “talk softly and carry a big stick” line, and then Obama used McCain’s own words to show that he’s really a blustering, saber-rattling bully. Perfect.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think McCain is the big town hall master he’s cracked up to be. His tone when interacting with the serfs reminded me of how a person who doesn’t really like or understand children sounds when forced to read a bedtime story. He gets this sing-songy, insincere cadence. I guess that’s what passes for warmth? I don’t get it.

I was going to recommend Todd Rundgren’s new “Arena” CD to Kevin K. as a “Swing to the Right” for 2008. But I no longer trust my own judgment.

Is it too late to send money to Phil Berg? And will Hillary still be eligible to run if Obama is disqualified? I’m so confused.

Oh, Betty—hold me. I don’t know what to do!

pop—My ideal debate scenario would have ended with Obama saying, “There’s only one way to settle this, Senator. It’s time to hang pork.”

His tone when interacting with the serfs reminded me of how a person who doesn’t really like or understand children sounds when forced to read a bedtime story. He gets this sing-songy, insincere cadence. I guess that’s what passes for warmth? I don’t get it.

Thank you. I could not form the words to describe that tone but it hit me harder and harder as the debate wore on. He was like the earnest Uncle who really, really wants you to register as a Republican for the good of the country.

Then you find out that Uncle John was raided by the Feds who found links to kiddie porn on his computer.

Hehe ~ I think that’s why McCain is so angry. Cindy keeps asking him if “it’s true, what they say about, you know ... ”

pop—Time for a “Godfather” reference. “They call this guy ‘Superman.’”

I just added the “that one” youtubey up top, for posterity.

From my dear friends at Red State ...

[UPDATE]: One other thought, as triggered by something I saw over NRO: ye gods but were those questions dull.

McCain got some good shots in with Fannie/Freddie, Obama got a good moment or two betraying the progressives over nuclear power, offshore drilling, and Israel; I’ll give the closing statement to McCain, but Obama humanizes amazingly when he’s talking about his wife. No insanely bad howlers this go-round. This was, in fact, kind of boring all around.

So, I’m going to say that things are unchanged, which is advantage: Obama. On the bright side, I called the first two debates for the GOP, so for all I know this is going to turn out to be EPIC WIN for McCain.

Moe Lane

PS: I’m not depressed, however. I can live with a bye.

I am positively, absolutely, unbendingly sure that one Ms. Monica “Soon to be Erickson, hee hee” Goodling will have some serious issues with your bye-love.

John King of CNN is an insufferable prick.

John King of CNN is an insufferable prick.

Not compared to Gregory he aint.

At the risk of being redundant, this was for me not the “second” debate but the “last” debate.

Near as I can tell, the Web response ranges from “boring” to “at least Sydney didn’t shit himself.” Even the PUMAs are struggling to paper-over John McCain’s eerie resemblance to Joel Cairo.

I see a steady downhill arc for Hanoi Xian from here on in, although I am obviously and unashamedly biased.

Time for a “Godfather” reference

Or Dolemite.

What?

I think we can run with Hanoi John.

I like that.

Then again, I hate you, America, fundamentals and reform.

pop—I’ll see your Dolemite and raise you JizzMaster Zero from “Orgazmo.”

Overheard at Hullabaloo:

digby: Tonight’s drinking game word is “crisis.” I hope you have a 12 pack.

K. Daniels: Wrong, tonight’s drinking-game phrase is “overhead projector”

Humboldt—You seem bitter and depressed. Let me have your pain. Best regards, Sybok. ;- 

Oh, and don’t thank me for “Hanoi Xian.” Thank Earl Mac Ruach and “Buckaroo Banzai.”  .

pop—I fold. The pot is yours. Just damn.

Wow, Buchanan faced up and called it for Obama ... of course, that’s when he was confronted by McCain’s own words, gestures and general demeanor.

Seriously—I WRITE those fucking planetarium shows. John McCain can kiss my ass if he thinks that money is a waste.

What’s amazing is how enthusiastic he was in thinking that people give a fucking shit about a three-thousand dollar projector in Chicago. He really is everybody’s angry grandfather, or the grandpa who is overly excited because he got the spot remover on sale. Yipeee!

Why does this McCain could have thrown a knockout punch with Ayers meme get any traction?

McCain can’t go to issues of character, unless, and you saw it repeatedly tonight, he’s the one doing the talking.

McCain can not go to these so-called knockout punches because he knows damn well that if he does, Obama hits him like Ali hit Liston.

Regulation of housing and banks? Keating 5.

Try to turn to your record time and time again and watch as your opponent takes it head-on and responds with more detail, knowledge and pizazz?

MSNBC is hating on McCain, even Roger simon is laughing out loud at McCain’s persona.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think McCain is the big town hall master he’s cracked up to be.

Yeah, McCain’s big moment supposedly was when he “related” to the serviceman who asked him a question.  Otherwise he did not seem to relate to the audience at all.  While Obama was open and pretty relaxed.  Talked about the, hello, MIDDLE CLASS (us being some of them) while McCain didn’t say a word about us.  And what was up with the McCains exiting the building immediately afterwards while Obama and Michelle hung around for an hour or so talking to people and taking pictures?  Does one candidate relate to voters more maybe, hmmm?  I suppose Say-rah Failin will still be trying to arouse her Rottweiler base to go after Obama tomorrow but I think it may have less effect after the McCain Fail tonight.

Obama wins.  McCain loses.  Brokaw fails.

Betty Cracker, swear to god I said the same thing about McCain and that ridiculous sing-song cadence he had going on. That was as irritating as Palin’s “g-droppin” folksy crap. McCain was like Mr Rogers on a mind-altering drug; flaky and beady-eyed.

And when he pointed behind his hand to Obama with, “that one”, I was completely creeped out.