A Fashionably Late or Functionably Lazy Roundup of the First Debate

After watching the 1st presidential debate on Friday evening, and then watching the pundits on both sides eat the truth, work it through their systems and regurgitate it as an all new dish, I thought I'd wait for the weekend and wine to wear off before I jumped into the topic. In my opinion, there was no knockout punch, but I would have to say Obama came out a little less bloodied. Here's what I took away from the whole thing:

1. What was with John McCain's insistence on making reference after reference that reminds us how old he is. Come on John, get your head in the game. Your not helping your cause by pointing out that you've been soft-shoeing in the senate since Jesus was a boy, or that your best friends are mostly dinosaurs and cavemen, or that you have the fire needed to change Washington because you were around when fire was discovered. We get it pops, you've been around the block in your Flintstones car a few times...stop feeding the liberals with ammunition.

2. John McCain does not like losing. As in the past, he was very persistent in pointing out that victory is within site in Iraq, and we are winning this and that, and that Obama doesn't want to give troops the resources they need to win, etc. I'm sorry if this seems off base, especially since the closest I've come to war is a couple all-nighter games of Risk - but who really wins in this kind of war? We're spending 10 billion a month in Iraq, so we're losing money, not winning it. Last I checked, we don't seem to have made any new friends in the world by waging this war, so we're not winning friends or respect. Those 4,000 dead US soldiers certainly didn't win. Nor did the countless dead Iraqis, which apparently aren't even worth reporting about. So who won? It doesn't sound to me like anyone has or will win anything out of this whole Goddamn ordeal. Maybe a few oil companies won, but the rest of us are leaving the fair with empty wallets, sadness, and no giant plush Osama Bin Laden. John McCain can take his winning attitude and shove it up his winning ass, and then tell us all how great victory feels.

3. Is it just me or was everyone wearing an absurd amount of make-up? It was like a clown party up on that stage. I was half expecting Jim Lehrer to give each candidate a few tosses at the Bozo Buckets. Will someone please inform the make-up artists of the world that we now have this thing called HD-TV?

4. I think John McCain has Derek Zoolander syndrome and can turn left, because he didn't look at Obama once. Not that Obama was much better, but he at least managed to rotate his torso a few degrees from time to time and look at his opponent.

5. Both of the senators appeared to be knowledgeable on the issues, with no significant advantage for either on any single topic. They both said what their bases wanted to hear and did so in an intelligent manner. I think each had opportunities to get a solid hit in on their opponent, but both settled for simple sparring. Obama could have put a solid upper-cut to the jaw of McCain's "I'm all for veterans" argument with bringing up his 20% approval rating by the Disabled Veterans of America. But no, he didn't take the shot, because his answers were a little too prepared.

I was overall rather bored by the whole affair. Maybe it's because I follow this stuff every day, or maybe it's because I'm already too excited about the VP battle royale coming this Thursday. Maybe I was just disappointed that McCain showed up and I couldn't use the same 'McChicken' joke that every blogger and journalist in the world was dying to use. Oh well, I guess I can always turn my attention to more exciting activities, like like watching the stock market bungee jump with a piece of yarn around its ankle. Yikes!