The Third Debate

(Note: In the style of H. L. Mencken I love to use invective, tangled with wit, as much as my politically contrarian friends love to read it, but the 2008 presidential campaign  may be too sad to be even darkly humorous.)

Last night I saw an old man nervously blinking in anger, smug with unwarranted pride, badly concealing his confusion, substituting talking points for thinking points.

Senator McCain's capacity is greatly diminished from 4 years ago, he is a man in the natural death throes of age, painful to watch and frightening as he slides away from the rational. He pretends nobody knows.  He's like a drunk trying to act sober while asking for the keys to our car.

Watching this embarassing sitcom, the possibility of the cartoonish Sarah Palin assuming the presidency became real; and that horror should drive  the 'undecided voters' to Senator Obama on election day.  Here we see a political phenomenon: during our current escalating financial crisis, the fear of McCain's and Palin's age and incompetence trumps the innate racism of the, euphemistically called, "white working class males" who, like good republicans, always vote their pocketbooks even if they have to vote for "that one."