lolaraincoat | The debates are over and thank God for that

The Democrats Abroad with whom we watched the debate again got really rowdy at every mention of Canada in this debate. Canadian oil WHOOO!!!!! Canadian HEALTH CARE YEEEEE-HAW!!!!!1!

Otherwise, ~~three~~ four points:

First, did anyone else notice McCain's completely unnecessary and factually inaccurate mention of the "tragedy in Dallas," i.e. the Kennedy assasination? He had to drag in some comment about Kennedy having had plans to debate Goldwater before he was killed, but that seems implausible at best because Kennedy died just about exactly a year before the election, at which point Goldwater wouldn't have been the Republican nominee, right? So why bring it up? I think it was like when Clinton's campaign, in its waning days, brought up Robert Kennedy's murder - playing on our mostly-unspoken fear that Obama is going to be killed, suggesting that we shouldn't vote for him because he might die if elected.

Second, the pundits afterward kept calling Obama "professorial" as if that were a bad thing. *sigh*

Third, John loves Joe. Joe the Plumber is clearly just a shaky rhetorical screen for his real true once-in-a-lifetime romance with Joe Leiberman. But Joe Six-Pack will do.

eta Fourth, what the hell was all that about Colombia? If you only count legal agricultural imports to the US, the "biggest trading partner" is Mexico. If you add in the value of illegal agricultural imports - some of which McCain or his debate-prep team appears to have ingested - then the biggest importer to the US would be, well, who knows, really? but my guess is, still Mexico. The biggest importer of US-grown agricultural products is Canada. Doesn't everyone know that already? Is McCain already prepping for a post-politics career shilling for South American tourism or something?

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