From Buchanan and Douglas ...

... whom had 4 and 6 hour one on one interchanges to this - Moderator: "Please raise your hand if you believe in evolution." This was during the MSNBC GOP debate and was meant to expose any of those insidious creationists whom believe in God. A show of hands? Disgraceful sophomoric tripe.

First a few words about Miller - he is one of my favorite comedians and I'll tell you why. One, you had damn well better read more then one book (fortunately I've read two, he,he) and been alert in more then one history class if you intend to get his jokes. He's probably the most prolific story teller and simile inducer that has ever daned the American comedic stage. Secondly, his ideological transformation. I've seen him interviewed many a time and he speaks of having been a died in the wool liberal, and then two things happened - he became a father and Giuliani became mayor. He watched as the city of New York was transformed from a punch line dripping with gangsters and homeless squidgy men, to its former glory of a shining big city. He recalled how his friends like Tim Robbins and Susan Surandon referred to Rudy as a Nazi. And Miller both knowing history and realizing the positive Giuliani effect decided his party, the Democrat Party, was going off the deep end and he slowly migrated over. And I'm sure it has cost him plenty professionally speaking. How could he continue to make his way in that industry after endorsing McCain in 2000, Bush in 2004 and Giuliani in 2008? Not to mention the unforgivable sin of having a regular segment on The OReilly Factor entitled "Miller Time." After his ill fated stint on Monday Night football he morphed over to a big sports talk show, and that's his main gig now. Apparently he's a big football fan. He still does HBO hour stand up shows here and there and his most recent was here in Vegas, I urge you to catch it if you can. At any rate, when he defended Stockdale is when I first became a fan. I didn't watch the live SNL defense but he repeated it verbatim only a few nights later on Leno, and I mean you could tell he was fit to be tied over their treatment of a bonified war hero. He had much the same feeling in 2000 for McCain. On Conan O'Brian he said, "Think about being a POW for 5 years for a second ... I think John ought to pull up to the Republican convention on a Harley in a leather jacket, flip everybody the bird and say, 'screw you people, you owe me.'" Crowd went nuts.

And that leads into my other sentiment concerning the Stockdales and McCain's of our nation and those who would poke fun. I think that the "protesting" baby boomers (and this is generalizing I realize that), the 'hell no we won't go" sit-in, love-in flower child crowd basically fall into two camps as of 2008. In the one you have those for whom they are still glowingly proud of their protest years. They have pony tails (even while going bald on top), wear lots of muted colors and brown sandals, and are the base of the DNC. Then you have those, like Miller, whom realize the grave disservice they and their peers did to the actual servicemen during Vietnam. Put simply, they feel guilty. Spitting on returning troops, being called "baby killers" and having to listen to Kerry compare them to barbarians from centuries past, it all turns their stomach as they look back on it and they now get very angry and have zero patience for those whom would poke fun at people like Stockdale. They realize the only way to make "good" on their youthful mistreatment of Vietnam soldiers is to give them the respect they deserve in the here and now, and to their credit they do. Coincidentally they've usually changed their party registration. I know that this doesn't account for people like Senator Webb, but it accounts for enough that it was worth my mentioning.

And on a side note Letterman has a regular segment - I saw it on Special Report With Brit Hume - entitled "John McCain, He's Really Old." They speak of his desire to bring integrity to the oval office just like his mentor, Thomas Jefferson. And you can see where they're going from there. For at least a moment they should consider something. Just this week Hillary blatantly lied about landing and running under sniper fire in Tusla Bosnia in 1996, even CBS had to expose that, their reporters were on that plane and the video shows it was a normal ceremonial meet and greet. All I could picture was John McCain listening to her describe her "heroing" event and saying, "uh huh." With much the same look and attitude that Malarchy had when the new West Pointer mentioned that he and Webb dodged a few morters on the way in.

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Our current debate formats are a joke, and purposely so. Debates, and the campaign in general come to think of it, are now designed to prevent gaffs rather then inform us of the candidate. Simply, "no mistakes" are the debate marching orders rather then having a genuine discussion. The closest we've had in recent memory was the VP debate between Cheney & Leibermann in 2000 which had many people afterwards wondering if each party could flip their ticket and allow the "adults" to run. My preference would be to give them two hours, 4 topics, and say "go." The moderator will simply give them a twominute heads up when the first 30 minutes (and thus the first topic) were coming to a close - let them ask and follow up eachother as Titus suggested, but completely. We will learn as much with the type of questions they choose to ask as we will in how they answer their opponent, and this way no one gets a pre debate copy of the questions.

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Thanks for the birthday kudos. My head is recovering quite nicely. One curiousity though about your registration comments. Why would ANYONE "hate" the low price having, everything you need (and don't need) under the sun, get your oil changed and prescription filled while shopping for dinner, bigger then US Steel and the mafia combined, WAL MART??? Do you realize the service they provide above and beyond their low prices? THEY EMPLOY THE UNEMPLOYABLE! You've seen the workers there - they make Copa grave shift dealers look like Nobel Laurates. That's the only down side, you will get zero assistance from the employees in locating or describing items - they're like the Yhetti, you think they may be out there but no one has actually seen one - but if you can fend for yourself, you've got the best goods 11 year old Chinese hands can produce!