Liveblogging the debate

Supposedly, tonight's gonna be the night the gloves come off.

Last time, I think I managed to capture the gist of the debate in my post-debate recap. But I was a little bit tired and soused once was it was all over and done with, so I was having a hard time remembering all of the specific points I wanted to cite.

That debate, to me, basically played like a competition between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin to find all of the various issues in which they agree with one another - as it's depicted in this video put out by Ralph Nader's running mate, Matt Gonzalez.

At the time, though, the most I could come up with was the two of them trying to one up one another on their love for Israel, agreeing that Iraq seemed like a good idea back in 2002, and that fags shouldn't be allowed to get married.

And obviously that's not gonna be enough.

So tonight what I'm gonna try to do is "live blog" the debate. I can't guarantee it's gonna turn out well. I was gonna wait until 7 until I started pregaming, but I missed that mark by like two hours. (It was still after 5 though!) But I guess we'll see.

Semi-live updates begin after the jump.

7:45: Watching Countdown on MSNBC. Gonna switch over to PBS when the debate begins, mostly because it's in HD. CNN is also in HD, but fuck CNN.

7:50: Trying to finish up this damn post before the debate comes on.

7:53: I've been seeing these T. Boone Pickens commercials for weeks now, and I'm still not sure what the fuck he's talking about. Is he gonna be involved with tonight's debate?

7:57: Chris Matthews seems to be suggesting that McCain is trying to incite someone to assassinate Obama. Word?

8:00: PBS isn't working, but CNN is. Conspiracy

8:01: Tom Brokaw never looked so old.

8:03: Obama should've thrown both of his hands up over his head, just because he can.

8:04: Who the fuck is this Kojack-looking motherfucker? "Town hall meeting" must be code for a debate where old white people get to ask the questions. No wonder McCain likes this format.

8:08: It's funny, McCain is so adamant about this being his format. And yet, so far, he's not coming off very well at all. Having a podium to stand behind would make him look less crippled.

8:10: Obama's hammering the economy as if it was Michelle's voluptuous rear end.

8:15: If only there were more than two candidates in this debate, maybe they could have discussed whether or not the bailout was a good idea in the first place, rather than taking for granted that it was.

8:19: Oh my god, they just let an illiterate woman try to read a question! Tennessee, stand up!

8:24: Did John McCain just shit his pants? I saw him squint.

8:26: We can't have Venezuela benefiting from high oil prices. Those people hate freedom.

8:34: It's too bad Republicans can't be upfront about the fact that they hate McCain. Damn near anyone from that side would have been more impressive.

8:37: When McCain says he wants to leave the tax rates alone, he really means he wants to leave the Bush tax cuts in place when they expire in 2010 or whatever, right? The guy's a fucking liar. It's too bad he's not debating Henry Rollins.

8:43: They're gonna fix health care by cutting taxes? But Brokaw signed a pact saying he wouldn't ask any followup questions? What the fuck is this bullshit?

8:44: McCain was on ships run with nuclear power, and it's not like there's anything wrong with him.

8:47: How come they couldn't have forced Tom Brokaw to sign a paper saying he'd shut the fuck up about the time limit?

8:51: Obama's gonna reduced health care costs by "investing in prevention." I wonder what that means.

8:57: It's a good thing there isn't enough time for Obama to explain how he finds health care to be a right, but he isn't in favor of socialized medicine.

9:02: I thought this was gonna be the debate when the gloves came off. Where's the stuff about Obama palling around with terrorists?

9:04: He just equated Darfur and Rwanda with the Holocaust. Aww dang.

9:11: Did McCain's handlers give him that line about how you're not supposed to say you're gonna attack Pakistan, or is that his own thing?

9:13: Is it talk softly and carry a big stick, or walk softly and carry a big stick?

9:18: Obama should point out the fact that McCain wasn't smart enough to be any more than a pilot in the military. Which is how he ended up in the Senate in the first place. So anything he says re: military strategy is essentially moot.

9:19: LOL at McCain looking into Vladimir Putin's eyes and seeing three letters, a K a G and a B.

9:24: The proper response to whether or not Russia is the evil empire, as Reagan once suggested? Fuck Ronald Reagan.

9:25: McCain just touched a guy.

9:30: No way McCain's gonna be able to top Obama's closing statement.

9:34: He didn't. I don't think he did very well tonight at all. I definitely don't think he turned things around, after having supposedly been down by as much as 8 points in the polls. It'll be interesting to see what people say.