At Cherie’s insistence, i actually watched the Presidential Debates last night.  I usually have trouble standing them, owing to my debating experience and having better things to do at 9pm on a Friday.  But, I live in Florida, I can buy liquor, and I’m old now; which, adds up to a whole lot of nothing better to do.

My initial impression was that McCain had the upper hand.  He seemed calmer, steadier, in comparison to Obama for some reason.  As a note, we all know that the actual substance of the ‘debate’ is merely one of many parts that attribute to a candidate ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ the debates, right?  Carrying on, I think that there was some good jabs that Obama made when he was warming up on Foreign Policy, but he let McCain run away with the ‘meeting with Ahman-fucking president of Iran’ (McCain had a lot of trouble pronouncing Ahmadinejad’s name, which I think is probably something you should get right as President. But hell, I have trouble saying it, and I’m part of that evil elite that has a grasp of the English language).  Obama needs to hit back on this ‘Earmarks’ crap; he did good putting congressional earmarks into perspective (even though it’s a blatant lie)  Could the Obama campaign not hire a room full of half-retarded college students to tally up a figure on what McCain has approved in his 20-something years in the Senate?  I can guarantee that it makes Obama’s earmarks look restrained.  It’s a dangerous line that Obama walks criticizing military expenditure, but I think he played it nicely and no one’s going to buy the old Republican strategy of “Democrat killing troops with budget cuts".  Honestly I think someone needs to look into the face of these Republicans and chief’s of staff and ask them how much goddamn good their gigantic budgets did for a few thousand people in Manhattan on 9/11/01.  Just a thought.

At the worst I think it’s a wash, and I think that if Obama can play his cards right and turn ‘elitism’ into ‘competence’ then he’ll be fine.  I love that one of my all time favorite politicians wrote out the exact sentiment I had last night that Obama has to not look like he’s beating up on Grandpa

Don’t have the strength or wit for a a full post, though it has been in my thoughts for a bit.  Meant to keep up, but you know how it goes.  Anyways, I’ve been lurking the alt.smokers.pipe group for the last fortnight, and I have to say it has been quite enjoyable.  I’ve given up the cigarettes for now in favor of the ‘fairer tobacco’ as it were.  Can’t talk bad about an organization that AFIK consists of professors, union organizers and crotchety old men.  Peace to all, I’ll update soon.