Liveblogging the first debate

Your correspondent will be liveblogging the debate through Saturday morning Australian eastern time, or failing that, watching back to back episodes of Two-and-a-half Men. Stay tuned.

Okay 8.30 pm on the east coast of america and we’re all getting ready for the first debate., which is about half an hour away. old walnuts mccain cried uncle this morning and said the debate wuld go ahead – even though he said he wouldn’t leave washington until a deal was done blah blah. well, no deal was done and with everyone saying that mccain was screwing things up rather than actally helping, and with the prospect that no-one was actually going to be in town for him to negotiate with, and the fact that the hold-outs – the Republican house members – think he’s a cunt, the prospect of sitting it out while Obama got two hours of free airtime was just too awful so he had no choice but to BECOME OBAMAS BITCH.

Obama hasnt hammered that home but maybe he didnt need to – surely he will get something in about it tonite. Not if we know Obama….

Meanwhile, as we wait, here’s a kitten…..

8.50pm what a wonderful advance the liveblogging revolution is…..time was i would watch the debate, take notes, and draw on such knowledge as i have to construct a report mixing description and interpretation, shaped and fashioned. Now, we write as it happens thus reducing everyone to instant unreflected  upon responses increasingly identical. Thank god for progress.

Okay away we go – 9.03pm – first question iswhere do you stand on the financial recovery plan…..

Obama  first to answer, whichmeans mccain will be able to get in a sucker punch

Obama giving general spiel tand then into his four point plan on the financial plan -

this is a final verdict on the republican party of eight years…

tails off nicely

mccain: sucking up to kennedy being in hospital, republicans and democrats sitting down together tonight – is he actually going to claim credit for pople sitting down together

mccain a bit cowed and calm

i went back to washington ….he’s rambling a bit…he sounds tired…..

rambling and unfocused

chair returns them to the plan – what do they think?

OBAMA: we havent seen the language yet NOOOOOOO OBAMA dont go all technical

but then he comes back into claiming some credit for himself -

we have to ask how did we

MCCAIN

president einsenhower – before the 94 Normandy invasion

the 94 invasion must have missed that

McCain rambling again – no focus, no shape to his answer

HA HA MCCAIN IS OBAMA’S BIYATCH, FOR THE MOMENT

Obama passes up the opportunity to really sink the slipper

ten days ago john said the fundamentals  of the economy are strong….

MODERATOR: tell him

Jesus this is like some sort of marriage counselling schtick – tell him what you really feel…..

SECOND QUESTION

- are there fundamental differences between your approach and senator Obama’s approach, senator mccain:

:::::christ this is really quite boring:::::::

mccain – spending is the problem -

we spent three million studying the dna of bears in montana….a criminal issue or a paternal issue….cant get his own gags right

slates obama for earmarks

over to obama ……

slates mccain for three hundred billion on tax cuts for the rich…

but Obama wobbly and fey…..

McCain comes out stronger on the waste thing – then wanders in to anecdote

Obama comes back strongly – ‘i dont know where senator mccain gets his figures from’, slams him effectively…go Bama

MCcain comes back pretty strongly with specific policies….and ends by saying that people might be interested to hear what senator obama thinks of as rich….

OBAMA should come back swinging here, well you think that over $5m is rich…but he doesn’t …he goes into specifics

Obama started storng and is getting wobbly, McCain started weak and is getting stronger, feeding off Obama’s energy….jesus Obama fight back

This really is old material v boring, pick up the pace guys

—

moderator -

what im trying to get to is whether this financial crisis is going to change your proposals

McCain proposes a spending freeze – and then a huge energy program…

obama fumbles the reply again…..

Well so we’re off domestic policy now and back onto the foreign policy, which is where McCain can get a few donkey punches on. Obama failed to really lay a few gloves on to him as a friend of the rich etc,  complicit in eight years of Bush etc.

The Iraq question – the weird thing about this is that John McCain can bait Obama about the surge, and land some points – but the American public don’t really care they just want out. A strange crossover…

Obama starts to punch back, and actually gets a bit of passion in telling Mccain he was wrong on the war, on WMDs, on etc etc

then he stumbles arrrgghhhhhh

It’s running about even by my assessment, McCain getting a slight edge on the Iraq stuff…

question gets on to afghanistan, and obama really knocks a few out of the park about the failure in afghanistan

mccain comes back saying that obama is being too bellicose in pakistan – the usual crossover thats become familiar by now

will Obama come back with the thing about following Osama to the gates of hell, but not to a cave in Pakistan….Obama sounded presidential on this stuff which is what he needs to do…

McCain comes back and sounds very plaintive about his record voting on whether we go in or out, but then he gets back on to the military schtick and the voting worm goes up….stuff about the bracelet a mother of a dead soldier gave him out at the airport

Obama – ive got a bracelet too…we’z all got bracelets….no US soldier dies in vain…well they do, but it’s a good get

——

10 pm now, one hour in, and we’re onto Iraq

McCain gets into the usual schtick pitched to the Florida vote, an existential threat to Israel blah blah blah

Obama signs on to most of this – goddamit wouldn’t you love him to say go Hezbollah victory to the revolutionary cadres! But he won’t….

—-

McCain gets into the won’t talk to dictators and then gets on to Nixon talking to Mao, and nails himself badly …..Nixon met with Mao as a total coup….

Will Obama nail him on it …..NOOOOOOOOOO! He waffles a bit on various things, gives examples of

McCain comes down hard on Obama -

why doesn’t Obama say – ‘what are you so afraid of? what are you so afraid of?’ ‘Arent american interests paramount?’

But he doesn’t. and McCain nuts him. Then we move onto Russia…

I missed a bit of this because I was getting ice…

when i came back McCain was banging on about Georgia and Ukraine…

HERES WHAT OBAMA SHOULD SAY: ARE YOU PLANNING THE NEXT WAR JOHN – WOULD YOU GO TO WAR WITH RUSSIA FOR SOUTH OSSETIA?

But of course he doesnt, wimp he mumbles on about Russia etc and then moves on to energy…

Senator McCain has voted against alternative energy funding 23 times.

HAMMER IT HOME! HAMMER IT HOME! say it again 23 times! 23 times!

But he doesn’t.

Final  question:

possibility of a 911 type incident?

McCain goes into a rambling thing about his involvement in the 911 commission. Here is Obama’s chance to shine, to clear the pack, denounce the whole last 8 years

what does he say: we’ve improved supervision of chemical sites. Say we’ve taken our eye off the ball in  Iraq and he doesn’t but does sort of and ohhhhhhhhhhh….but hell the viewer worms are going up and up and up….

McCain comes back …..Senator Obama still doesnt understand…….and then does a spiel….

Obama is given a reply and frigs it up with too much detail, and then brings it back

‘we have weakened our capacity to act around the world’ etc etc, and then he goes into general spiel about well everything, and seems to sum things up…

mccain really sinks the slipper obama does not have the experience…

OBAMA: let me make a closing point – my father came from Kenya……he wanted to come to the US….YES YES BUT WOULD YOU FUCKIN ATTACK MCCAIN PLEASE ATTACK HIM

Obama goes too long, and McCain gets a final bit in, but it isnt that great…

wheeewwww

There’s a poem by Kate jennings, which i was reminded of recently which goes something like….

something something

Blood On The Tracks

dinner, and

an unsatisfactory fuck….

and man that was what it was like, a diffident, shifting unsatisfactory political fuck…..

neither nailed it. McCain got some shots in, but it was pretty much a draw…..