The Presidental Debate: Lies, Damned Lies and Reacharounds

The rules can be confusing. Pinche wey means “fucking guy”, but can also mean “you adorable scamp” or “pal”. But if you use the word “pal” – or, worse, “my friend” – in my kitchen, it’ll make people paranoid. “My friend” famously means “asshole” in the worst and most sincere sense of that word.

– Anthony Bourdain, from Kitchen Confidential

Twenty-two times, McCain said it. Twenty-two… fucking… times. Given the savage beating that McCain’s taken in the last couple of weeks, it’s easy to extrapolate his use of the phrase as a way to call we voters assholes… although considering the sheer number of debate drinking games floating around, I think he was using it as an attempt to commit the largest attempted mass murder of Americans since Jonestown. And he’s got the gall to call Obama a terrorist.

Since Monday, McCain’s been sending The Killa From Wassila (I would call her Sarah Barracuda, but given the mood of Republicans these days, I don’t need angry comments accusing me of saying she smells like fish) around accusing Obama of being so close to terrorists that he can ask for a reacharound in both Arabic and Ebonics, while Obama’s been swinging back by telling people that McCain’s so crooked he needs to lie on his side and wedge his legs into the corner to hit the urinal without embarrassing backsplash.

So I only watched the debate because I figured that it was probably the most likely chance to see one of the candidates go completely berserk and start throwing punches around… which would have given the added hilarious bonus of days of attack ads saying, “John McCain wants you to trust him, but look at this video. See that right uppercut? Of course he can raise his arms over his head!”

Sadly, nothing of the sort happened. It was pretty much more of the same old shit we’ve been hearing from both of these dopes for the past two years. Mostly, it was just fucking boring; even the CNN undecided voter reaction meter looked like Terry Schivo’s alpha patterns.

At my house, there were only two notable moments. One of them was when Obama wanted to respond to some point McCain about taxes and Brokaw said no and asked another question… and Obama ignored it and talked about taxes anyway. My girl leapt to her feet and shrieked, “Don’t you do it! Don’t you fucking Palin that question, you sack of shit! I’ll write in Doug Stanhope, I swear to fucking God!”

The second moment came after McCain announced his plan to have the Federal government buy up every home mortgage in the United States and refinance them at their current reduced market value at a baffling and crippling financial loss. Which would sound like an bold progressive plan, had John not proudly stated that he wanted to institute a spending freeze on everything except defense, veterans affairs and entitlements not two weeks ago, a position reiterated by Palin, well, yesterday. It was a flip-flop of terrifying proportions, like watching President Bush punch out the prince of Saudi Arabia on his way to celebrate Ramadan with a Sunni rent boy.

That’s when I realized that John McCain will say any ridiculous thing that rockets into his head to get elected. Anything. Once I understood that, I was able to tune him out for the rest of the debate, until I heard him say, “I’ll get Osama Bin Laden, my friends (drink!), I’ll get him. I know how to get him.” Then I paid attention, but only because I thought he was going to follow up with: “What I’ll do is ask the Pentagon to assemble our entire nuclear arsenal, and then I will rub my scrotum against the warheads so I can obtain superpowers. Superpowers I will use to pluck Bin Laden into custody from the sky. I know how to do it, and I defy my opponent to try this bold strategy and see if he has the experience to get superpowers instead of lymphoma.”

Originally I was gonna skip the third debate next week, but now that I understand the depths of McCain’s desperation, I am totally going to be tuning in. I’m placing the official American Jerk line at 3 to 2 that McCain’s opening statement will be that, if elected President, he promises not to come in your mouth.

That is, unless late polling indicates that a plurality of the electorate wants a load in the throat. In that case, it’s even money that John takes the stage with a quart of Gatorade and a bunch of bananas, armed with preparatory lessons from Sarah Palin in winking.

[tags]Presidential Debate, John McCain, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, mortgage plan, My Friends, political humor, dark humor, satire[/tags]