A few loose ends...

The last few weeks (months? years?) have been a little hectic so quite a few events have blasted past with little or no commentary.

First, I have been strangely silent about the debates. Not of course if you have been around me in person, but in text is how I try to sort out my ideas and on this issue I haven't really yet. And there have been a few things I have been wanting to say. I have to say I am a little boggled by the response to the debates from some of the other blogistanis with whom I usually find some comfortable solidarity on issues of political nature. Not that we disagreed tremendously or that we really usually look at things the same way, but the differences really struck me this time.

Overall, after the first debate, I thought the nekkid emperor did way better than I would have expected. I know there is all the expectation game bullshit and hoorah for everyone who helped spin this for Big K, but really, he always makes idiot faces and sounds like a moron even when speaking from a script. I thought he stood up better than you would have expected. Which is to say that he did terribly. Kerry did pretty good, but I felt like he really missed a few open opportunities to really drive some tough points home. By the end, my attention was lost. All in all an obvious victory for Kerry unless you are a very special kind of stupid (which, it appears, quite a few people are), but as my mother put it, "I wasn't really impressed with either of them."

One major note of contention I had with some bloggish leaders who I read damn near religiously after reading their coverage of the VP turd sling: Gwen Ifill was the best moderator that I have seen for a presidential debate in a long damn time. James Wolcott has been brightening my day since I discovered his blog a short while back, but on this we were at direct odds; Gwen Awful is not how I would have described the night. I would take her over Jim Lehrer any day and though I thought Charlie Gibson did a remarkable job with his turn at baby sitting, I would have loved to watch her interaction with our national embarassment. The impression that I got from her was that she didn't suffer fools gladly, which is where the apparent animosity towards edwards came in. Cheney by definition comes across as an ogre, but he is a well spoken and coherent ogre, even if he uses dishonest tactics and lies to make his points. His points may have been crafted deep in mordor, but they were delivered conversationally and he occasionally remembered the soul of wit. Edwards points, although harvested from fairer fields (except for all this "kill, kill, kill" bullshit), were recited. He is reasonable, he is pretty, he had no excuse for coming across like a ventriloquist doll.

The best spin I could put on the VP debate was that it was something akin to Homer Simpson debating Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns is smarter and sounds better, but really deep down you know that Homer should prevail despite looking like a doofus in public.

Luckily, Marge is just hitting her stride and cleaned Krusty's clock in their debate on Friday. I seriously take task with everyone running around saying things like it was a draw or bush did better this time. No it wasn't, no he didn't. He came across like a buffoon at best and in reality as something closer to a horrible brat who had matured into a horrible asshole. Kerry looked better than ever, and despite still needing to really just address that question at hand simply and directly before turning to wallop the sitting presiduck, he came across as coherent and engaging.

Tomorrow night's plans for watching the further decline of the simian prince are hazy at the moment due to bf's purchase of tickets to see a band long ago when our minds weren't looking ahead to the debate, but if nothing else I guess I can resort the VCR (were is my knight with shining TIVO?) and hope to make my commentary in a more timely fashion. We shall see.