Debatable
or Duck Hunting with Larry Flynt on a Volcano
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
10/4/04
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Humor/debatable.htm
As most of you know, I live in the Cascade volcanic range. In fact, I live ON a volcano. As I’m writing this, Mount Saint Helens is getting ready to explode, and folks, I want you to know that my devotion to this column is such that I am staying put and typing this, despite the fact that we are so close to Mount Saint Helens that we should be able to see the eruption clearly on our television screens the next day.
Of course, that’s not the only reason my TV has been on a lot lately. There’s a presidential election coming up. You may have heard about it between innings.
Saturday, I watched the Dodgers eliminate the Giants, which is always a satisfying way to spend an afternoon. The Giants went into the bottom of the ninth leading Los Angeles 3-0, but the Dodgers scored 7 runs (the score was tied 3-3 when Steve Finley hit a grand slam) to win the game, and the division. This morning, I was looking at the box score with a certain sense of elation, and marveling at the eight zeros followed by a seven. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a box score quite like that before.
It made me think of the Kerry campaign. For the past six weeks, Kerry had been taking some good chops at the plate, but not really getting on base, with nothing to suggest a rally. (I promise to drop the baseball analogies in the next paragraph.) Then, with time running out, a couple of baserunners get on, and the other team is laboring.
For those who haven’t heard, the latest Gallup came out Sunday afternoon, and it shows a shift of 13 points between the candidates. According to Gallup, which routinely shows Putsch up by five or six points compared to all other polls, they are in a dead tie, compared to a 13 point Putsch lead before the debate.
I came away from the debate thinking Kerry had picked up about five million votes, or about 4 points. And while Kerry indisputably did a fine job, I think it was the nervous, twitchy, and vacant performance by Putsch that really did the damage. (One of my readers referred to the debate as Lurch vs. Twitchy, which resulted in coffee on my keyboard). I’m used to seeing Putsch look like an utter moron, but there are millions who previously only saw the finely crafted clips on Faux and CNN that made him look confident and capable, who were seeing the real Putsch for the first time. It probably wasn’t very reassuring.
There are several other debates. The next one, which George Stephanopoulos calls "the Undercard," is the vice-presidential debate, C. Montgomery Burns vs. The Candidate. There’s no particular topic, and the candidates are allowed to interact. Given that Cheney actually has a brain, this one shouldn’t be as painful to watch. Vice presidential debates tend to be pretty entertaining, but don’t have any affect on the outcome. Consider the most famous one, Bentsen vs. Quayle. Bentsen hammered Quayle into the floor, piled dirt on the floorboards, and planted roses in the dirt, and he still wound up losing the election as America confirmed to the world that it was perfectly willing to be represented by a shuffling moron. This time, we’ve got the dour and bitter policy wonk / right wing nut job against the young, chirpy, but articulate and well-read contender, and it should be entertaining. That’s this Tuesday at 9pm eastern.
Debate #2, Monkey vs. Funky, is this coming Friday, the 8th. The topic is "Questions from Undecided Voters." Despite what Samantha Bee thinks, one of them is not likely to be "How do I dress myself in the morning?" Given the severe mental limitations of the incumbent, I’m sure all the questions were submitted in advance so formulaic answers could be scripted and memorized, but it’s still going to be an improvement over the sorts of questions Putsch gets at his campaign rallies, where you have to sign a loyalty oath to get in, have your question pre-approved, and ask it on Karl Rove’s signal. Just like every other third rate banana republic that still maintains an empty facade of a democratic process for the peasants, yes. The audience will be split between "soft Bush supporters" and "soft Kerry supporters" (I’m not making this up) and is sponsored by Gallup.
Well, I didn’t think the first debate was going to be very substantive, and I turned out to be wrong. Maybe this one will exceed expectations, too. Watch for "deer in the headlight" pauses.
The final debate is Wednesday the 13th. That gives the Putsch campaign 20 days to try to erase the debates from public memory. That final one reverts to the format of the first one, and will have Bob Schieffer from CBS moderating. He will hold up typewritten sheets of paper and ask each candidate to guess what year they were produced in. Once that joke falls flat (what do you mean, "it already did"?) the candidates will take turns answering the moderator’s questions on domestic issues. Chances are Schieffer already has a list, and I hope it includes variants on the following questions:
Why, after two massive tax cuts, has the economy simply sat there like a frog on a hot plate instead of taking off like a bottle rocket, which is what Putsch promised the tax cuts would make it do?
Why have we lost 2.3 million manufacturing jobs, and seen a net gain of over 6 million more people unemployed since 2001, and how can we reverse that?
What will you tell the country if you are the winner of the election, but there are so many ballot boxes compromised around the country that many people simply don’t accept the results?
Will you demand that Congress quit fucking around with idiotic debates on abortion, gay marriage and flag burning amendments, and work instead on getting a coherent budget passed?
Any question about the Supreme Court should be listened to with extreme attention. The court hasn’t changed in over ten years, a record, and there are going to be at least three justices retiring, dropping dead, or getting knifed in drunken brawls in whorehouses in Rio de Janeiro over the next four years.
The other day, Antonin Scalia made the following startling remark before a Harvard function sponsored by the Crimson, which reported the story: "I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged." Court flaks quickly put out a news release saying the justice was just joking.
Now, this isn’t too extraordinary a statement. Doctor Ruth would say something like that, and most psychotherapists around the country would nod in agreement. But Scaly isn’t Doctor Ruth, despite a strong physical resemblance. He is a sour little Catholic extremist of the Mel Gibson / Ignatius J. O’Reilly school of theology, and, incredible as it might seem to future generations, also a Supreme Court Justice. He isn’t noted for a sense of humor, nor is he regarded as a sexual libertine.
What’s next? Will he go duck hunting with Larry Flynt?
My own theory is that for convoluted reasons, he has hired a hit man to take himself out, and is enjoying his final days speaking his mind. Someone really could make a good movie out of that.
So you have various justices who are about to drop in their tracks (the average age is 70) and one who might be diving into the shallow end of the pool.
So yeah: the candidates’ opinions on the Supreme Court are very, very important.
The first debate showed that these debates really do matter, despite the best efforts of the campaigns to make them as bland, formulaic, and harmless as possible. Obviously, there are too many bugger factors for that to stay an assurance.
So, as Leo McGary said, "I’d watch."