Obama Braised A McCain: The Top 25 Things We Learned From The Final Presidential Debate

Posted at 10:30 PM Oct 15, 2008

By Kenny Herzog

Ladies and gentleman, start your engines. Actually, don't do that, because you shouldn't be reading blogs while operating a vehicle. It's still questionable whether that should be done while sitting motionless on a couch.

Anyway, tonight's third and final presidential debate was full of more of the same. But just seated. And without hilarious audience interaction. John McCain still herked and jerked around like Yul Brenner in Westworld. Obama still smirked and chuckled arrogantly at some of McCain's more empassioned attacks. McCain still glossed over Obama's consistently nuanced dissections of his fiscal policy in favor of generalized accusations. And Obama occasionally peed his pants in fear when McCain looked like he was gonna snap and put him in a figure-four leg lock. And unlike his opponent, the Illinois Senator wasn't wearing Depends.

Anyhow, here are the top 25 thoughts and observations from a night that will be completely irrelevant when whoever wins is mired in all manner of domestic and international clusterfucks come 2009 (in no remotely sensible chronological or conceptual order).

25. Hey Obama, why don't we just manage chronic illnesses with the muthafuckin' chroooonic? Hm, yeah, that doesn't come across as well without being exaggerated with faux-street-slang intonation.

24. If Obama were gay, would he be Jerel Scott?

23. Hey McCain, fuck you and your $5,000 tax refund. The government is not your personal Publisher's Clearing House. (On that same note, how are we going to pay for the gas to go across America, and what good does it do me to have portable insurance when I've broken my leg and can't leave my neighborhood?)

22. McCain's really digging his own grave with this whole taxes thing. And Sarah Palin is standing behind the maverick to push him in. (OK, I just wanted to say your name so I could put a tag for you at the bottom of the article.)

21. Education is a civil rights issue but health insurance is a responsibility? My dear boy McCain, if only your points of view were as consistent as your bowel movements.

20. Kind of hard preaching about sex education to a guy whose whole image revolves around his missionary position. Or was that military? Sorry, I'm halfway through my Joe Six-Pack of Budweiser.

19. Every time John McCain blinks, you drink. Which means you are now all dead.

18. When McCain corrected Bob Sheefer about the climate control/climate control discrepancy, couldn't you just see the guy fuming to himself, "Oh yeah, well how are you gonna like it when I change the question to how many times you've renewed your Flomax subscription in the past year, you old, desert-loving fuck"? Eh, maybe you weren't watching it in HD.

17. Man, McCain sure looked like he wanted to abort that Roe V. Wade question.

16. Why do conservative judges need to be put in quotes? I thought they reside in special chambers with fun gavels to bang and silly black dresses.

15. Hearing these guys field the same questions three times over in different contexts is like watching two actors run through redundant sexual positions across multiple rooms of a house during a shitty fuck flick. Except in this case it seems masturbatory for the performers.

14. John McCain looks more defeated than when he was a POW. Or at least from what I gathered after watching The Faith Of My Fathers.

13. McCain actually had a good little jab when suggesting Obama should have ran four years ago if he wanted to run against President Bush. But why do that when he would have lost?

12. Doesn't it seem unlikely that in the cumulative history of presidential debates, not a single participant has inadvertently farted underneath their chair? No, you're right, they totally did it advertently.

11. Partisan presidential races have always boiled down to the Democratic candidate's intellectualized and personalized values versus their Republican counter's dogmatic policy. But what's tipping the scales is the liberal philosophy at last being articulated with eloquent common sense.

10. Somehow, modern-day Republicans have reinterpreted small government as meaning town hall discussions in really tiny rooms.

9. McCain, you had me during your whole speech about inappropriate George Wallace-related accusations, but then you lost me with the repeated use of the word repudiate.

8. Ironic that McCain is the courageous war veteran, yet Obama's the only one who seems willing to endure his name being smeared if it means he survives for an opportunity to put Americans in better economic standing.

7. Those veterans are just wearing those hats that say Iraq and Vietnam because they got them at the nearby Lids store at the Roosevelt Field Mall, where they were on a rack next to the I Love Sausage mesh cap.

6. McCain, you haven't repudiated shit when you've put your vocal seal of approval on an onslaught of negative campaign ads.

5. Who knew Obama was so tight with Dipset? Oh, oh, he meant the Jim Jones from NATO, not this guy.

4. OK, McCain kind of won me over when he used the word "cockamamey."

3. So basically, the only positive platform McCain can jump off thanks to his VP nominee is exploiting her child's illness to act as a sudden advocate for special-needs kids.

2.Who cares what Joe Six-Pack thinks, Mrs. Palin? This election is being determined by Joe "The Plumber" Wurtzleburgerwitzsmith." Who will be facing off in a steel cage match with Jim "The Anvil Niedhart" next Tuesday at the Nassau Coliseum, which coincidentally enough is right down the street from Hofstra University.

1. Focusing on Joe Biden and not Palin when asked why his running mate is more qualified: Obama's genius stroke of the night. Game. Set. Match.

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