Liveblogging the Depression Town Hall Debate, Part II
If there was ever a time for an old-fashioned community meetin' at the old town hall, what with the world comin' to an end and such, that time is now, brothers and sisters. But, we can't even do aGreat Depressionright, so get ready for a lot of inane questions submitted via Twitter on the Internet or whatever, as McCain prepares to challenge Obama on the question of whether black people should even be allowed to vote, let alone run for president.
9: 00 PM -- Good morning, Asian stock markets! The NIKKEI index is already down 340 points. Australian markets are down about 4%. Hong Kong's down 879 points.
9: 00 PM -- Hey here is a fun thing we hope to use tonight: C-SPAN debate hub! Make your own clips of embarrassing McCain moments, or when Sarah Palin rushes onstage with a noose.
9: 00 PM -- OMG this is such a clean, well-lighted town hall. Who knew we had such nice things, in the Depression?
9: 01 PM -- Rules: No rambling, no reading Sarah Palin's old index cards.
9: 01 PM -- Oh hi, Tom Brokaw! You are looking sharp for a long-retired news anchor from "the past."
9: 01 PM -- Brokaw picked the questions! He is in the tank for McCain because he wrote that book about "The Greatest Depression," when McCain was a wealthy ne'er-do-well young bachelor.
9: 02 PM -- McCain waddles out, looking grim and terrible. You know how your Obama looks.
9: 03 PM -- "The world has changed a great deal, and not for the better." That is Brokaw, dooming us.
9: 03 PM -- They flipped a coin! These rich elitists still have coins!
9: 04 PM -- And Steve Schmidt asks the first question.
9: 04 PM -- Solid start for Barry. McCain is stooped over his little child's desk, grimacing. This is what Bob Dole did! ("Bob Dole doesn't like that.")
9: 05 PM -- McCain got out of his chair!
9: 05 PM -- Barack is sounding good, talking right at the guy, but is heconnecting?
9: 06 PM -- McCain starts off by insulting Obama, "Senator Obama, good to be with you atatown hall meeting." He leers and winks. Oh dear god.
9: 06 PM -- McCain immediately wanders away from the bald guy who asked the question. McCain says he would make the government buy all the bad mortgages in America. Wow, that is total socialism!
9: 08 PM -- "My friends," three times in the first answer! Drink, drink, drink.
9: 08 PM -- Oh, and McCain answers, when Brokaw asks him about who would run this operation, as treasury secretary. McCain angrily barks, "Not you, Tom." A bit of nervous laughter. Good god. Then he mentions Warren Buffet.
9: 09 PM -- Ha ha, McCain wants us all to make our living selling our possessions on eBay.
9: 10 PM -- Obama offhand mentions that Warren Buffet, you know,supports Obama.But we'll deal with that later?
9: 10 PM -- This is what should carry over: Obama sayingoneproblem is the decline in house prices, but the larger problem is that incomes are declining.
9: 12 PM -- Oh, did you hear that McCain "left my campaign, and suspended it" to fly to Washington and fuck up the bailout/rescue deal for a week, letting about $1.5 trillion in equity values vanish? Good work!
9: 12 PM -- Ha ha ha, now McCain is pretending he even knew therewasan economy two years ago, and he was going to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac! By, uh, having all their lobbyists run his campaign.
9: 13 PM -- Hilarious, how McCain tells the black guy who asks the question that he never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before. You know, blacks!
9: 14 PM -- "I've got to correct a little bit of Senator McCain's history, not surprisingly."
9: 14 PM -- Obama has actually been bitching about the subprime crisis when only YOUR EDITOR (and all the Housing Bubble blogs) knew this was about to fall apart.
9: 15 PM -- Ha ha, Obama kind of glances to his side and says, "And you know, McCain's campaign manager is the lobbyist for Fannie and Freddie, but who even cares how he fucked everything up, let's just move on."
9: 16 PM -- The women are pushing the Obama Love Button! The men are positive, but still a little weird about loving a black man.
9: 17 PM -- McCain also is not going to promise the economy will get worse, first. But he will continue repeating his big idea he will repeat every answer: America will buy ALL THE MORTGAGES, in America! Is this even plausible, let alone possible? Ah but the fundamentals (workers) are innocent bystanders? What?
9: 18 PM -- Here is Sarah Palin's mom, asking how she can trust either of the parties, when it is all the fault of Evil Washington Insiders?
9: 19 PM -- And Obama ... uh, doesn't start well. Okay, surplus, right, Clinton surplus. Bush debt, deficits, nobody's completely innocent (except all working Americans who bought houses they can't afford, according to McCain).
9: 20 PM -- Health care reform budget energy blah blah the Chinese, the Saudi Arabia, you need to answer the question, Barry.
9: 21 PM -- Lieberman! Climate Change! This is McCain's answer. Jesus, can ONE of you do something here? And the Men and Women of Ohio agree that McCain is blabbering even more than Obama.
9: 22 PM -- Pork! Earmarks! It is a good thing McCain will not vote for earmarks, or stuff to educate children, like science stuff. Probably black children, too! (Chicago.)
9: 24 PM -- Brokaw says what is your priority, health, energy or entitlements? McCain: "What were those again?" Brokaw repeats them. McCain says, "I, uh, think we can work on all three of those." Reagan! My Friends! I know how to do that! Lieberman!
9: 25 PM -- So, no answer.
9: 25 PM -- What is the $700 billion dollars he's talking about? The bailout bill he voted for? It's for TERRORISTS???
9: 25 PM -- Obama: Energy is at the top of the list. Fucks up foreign policy, makes you more poor.
9: 27 PM -- Barack: "Sen. McCain likes to talk about earmarks a lot .... But understand this, when Sen. McCain supports a $300 billion tax cut that he's going to give to big corporations and big oil companies," blah.
9: 28 PM -- Brokaw threatens both of them for talking so goddamned long.
9: 28 PM -- Somebody from the Depression somehow came back from John McCain's childhood and got inside the Internet! Jesus this is so scary. Anyway, she has a question. Why is nobody ever asked to sacrifice anything, ever, in this fat fucking country of fat fucking losers?
9: 29 PM -- McCain will have a spending freeze! This is how Hoover ended the Great Depression!
9: 30 PM -- "We're not rifle shots here, we're Americans." What is Walnuts talking about?
9: 30 PM -- Obama: 9/11! Oh right, we all were so bewildered and terrified that we wanted to come together, and do shit, for the country, but Bush told us to go shopping. "That wasn't the kind of call to service that the American people were looking for." This is true! Your editor was ready to join the CIA or whatever, but he was ... oh, some damned thing. Too old? Too high? No money for shopping, though, plus your editor hates motherfucking shopping. Unless it's for wine.
9: 33 PM -- New liveblog here, with your Jim Newell!