This Debate Will Never Start

Here is the scene: There are many, many, many filing tables. About a third of the chairs are occupied. There are flat screen monitors on stands, and they're all playing this SAME GODDAMNED 5-MINUTE LOOP ABOUT HOW NEVADA IS SO AWESOME IF YOU ARE A MEXICAN WHO MOVED HERE. Or a Cuban. Harry Reid does the intro. I have seen this at least a dozen times and have no doubt I'll see it another dozen times before the debate finally begins.

As usual, the media is off in this windowless warehouse. The actual debate is next door, where people are getting massages and eating fine sushi, maybe, and Obama is whispering hopeful phrases, and this awful video isn't on endless loop.

Was it really necessary to come to this thing tonight? To drive across the Great Mojave Desert burning $45 worth of gasoline, all to set up a mobile office at the wrong end of the Strip?

Of course not. But presidential elections are four years apart. Nobody remembers four years ago. You can forget basically anything in four years, including the absolute worthlessness of traveling all the hell over to watch something on teevee.

Maybe Dave Barry is here. He might have beer.