Putting the ‘duh’ in debate!

Here I am.

The monster post I promised two weeks ago fell through primarily through the advent of tequila and carnitas. I had said I’d write about the last weekend of September during which Obama and McCain debated for the first time, my friend Sean was married and my fantasy football team, The Big Dusty Pony, faced my other friend Mo’s team, The Does, in a fierce contest of imaginary football teams contesting for our imaginary pride.

Well, all that came to a screeching halt when the debate was not allowed to be televised due to the political temperaments of the two families soon to be joined in wedded bliss. I drowned my sorrows in fried pork tacos, ceviche, and some adult beverages. In an effort to maintain The Pony’s spirits, I rode a rake like a horse as seen here:

But in case you were wondering, my friends did get married without a hitch (unless you want to include my dreadful toast) and I did beat The Does. Mo’s father was aghast at the defeat:

I celebrated:

And this man didn’t care:

So instead of a “monster” post you’ll get a somewhat smaller one because I’ve just watched the second debate between McCain and Obama and needed to put live crabs down the front of my shorts to stay awake. Located in Nashville, the debate was townhall-style — I ordered a hotdog “townhall-style” at my local Sonic but it wasn’t what I expected — meaning that the candidates can walk around and take vetted questions from the audience and Internet.

There were two exciting moments during the debate: when McCain tried his hand at a joke with “that one” and on a separate occasion blurted out, “Did he say how much the fine was going to be?” after he had said Obama would fine families for not having health care for their children.

Other than that, they leveled the same accusations of voting 95 times for this and 24 times for that and being in bed with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. (I thought McCain missed a golden opportunity to point out that some Obama campaign advisers are former administrators for the two companies.) Okay, fine, I’ll ask: at what point do we stop believing the numbers these guys toss out about votes when trying to slam their opponent? 100? 1,000? 10,000? If Obama said McCain voted 10,000 times against regulating markets would that be as absurd as the number he throw outs now? I’m leaning “nay” and not just because this website is The News Pony.

The point is debates are supposed to reveal new portions of someone’s record. But all the viewer gets is a primetime special of more of the same. If people wanted that then “Sportscenter” would run continuously from 6-10 pm. That’s why things need to be mixed up a little at the debates.

1) Since the media can’t stay away from phrases such as “squared off against”, “faced”, “took the gloves off” and “pulled no punches” why not stick the candidates in the ring and drop a microphone down from the rafters. At the very least it might seem like a LL Cool J video but at least the boxing phrases make more sense.

2) And this could only work after the first debate, but the moderator keeps track of accusations from the trail and the first debate only to interrupt the candidate when he levels an old and/or baseless charge. The media has set up “factcheck” segments after the debates to see if the candidates are telling the truth. Guess what? Both McCain and Obama are not speaking the truth some of the time. Short of bringing in Jack Burns to give a lie-detector test why not have the moderator step in and say, “Candidate 1, you are fibbing.”

3) Why not have the candidates ask each other questions? NFL, MLB, NBA teams don’t perform this weird dance of interacting but only through the referees. They play each other. The way it’s set up now a candidate basically talks about the other person as if he or she isn’t in the room, which is just embarrassing for everyone. You would still need a moderator to be the referee and keep track of time (Speaking of which, somebody take Tom Brokaw’s stop watch away.) but I want to see battles for field position and who makes a run in the fourth quarter. I bet someone would crack and toss out the Bill Ayer’s relationship or McCain’s noted temper and then we’d see just how these guys react to adversity. I don’t necessarily want a Jerry Springer episode but a little back and forth couldn’t hurt. Scratch that, I would like a Springer episode.

Other suggestions include overhead cameras to see what they’re writing on the notepads and having something outdoors so you could smell meat grilling and hear lawnmowers.

All I’m asking is for a little more adversity in these debates because we all depend on these to judge a candidates resolve and character. It’s already a dicey proposition that so much depends on these because three good performances does not a good president make. It’s like drafting a good player simply because of his performance in the final tournament when he or she played way above their level (see Bradley’s Patrick O’Bryant). Yeah it means something but there’s more to someone than a couple of games.