The Beginning

9:00 p.m. EDT- I am watching on PBS, so I don't have to see the ridiculous crawl on CNN (or listen to Wolf "they are so poor, and they are so black" Blitzer), or hear the ridiculous commentary from everyone else. I wish the Daily Show would cover these things live.

9:02- Starting with new programs. I don't understand what all these programs have to do with the credit freeze, but ok. What I see is all of these programs promote MORE government spending. I am not against government spending, just large deficit spending. And what happens if China refuses to lend us any more money?

9:04- McCain puts the blame for the housing failures on Fannie and Freddy. Ugh. Here we go again...

9:06- Obama actually has something new to say!! Huzzah! I like the idea of taking away tax breaks for outsourcing. I like that. McCain is telling a story about a plumber. Huh? Oh, he's talking about tax brackets. And bullshit is coming out his ear. Nice comeback by Obama. By my count, Obama 2, McCain 0.

9:11- Now McCain is talking about money redistribution. Typical Republican boilerplate. I hate Republicans. Obama seems so much more calm and at ease. Even McCain's laugh is phony. Ugh.

9:13- Bob Shiffer is doing a great job as moderator. I like this format, with the candidates sitting. It's more like a discussion. Obama is talking in circles, and is reverting back to Democratic boilerplate. Ugh. McCain is talking about Depression-era programs that purposefully excluded minorities. Yeah, we should go back to that.

9:18- McCain keeps telling me that he knows how to do stuff, but offers no details. Except going back to pork-barrel spending. Line-item veto alert! Uh, the Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional. Case closed. Earmarks are such as small part of the budget, which Obama smartly points out. Damn, he's good.

9:21- States "balance" their budgets because the federal government subsidizes them. How can Senators not know this?

9:24- High road question- nice. Well formulated, too. Let's see them run around this...McCain's up first. We go to Lewis. Unfortunate. He wants Obama to repudiate Lewis' remarks, but won't repudiate Palin's (pals with terrorists). Hypocrite. Obama is handling this well. He makes good points, and is very classy. He just seems more presidential.

9:30- Fuck you, McCain for bringing up the Dallas loss.

Why is the amount of money Obama spends on ads relevant? And why do we have to get back to redistribution of wealth? Dammit.