A moving piece of propaganda to be sure, I’m not of the opinion that we’ll ever live in a time without conflict. But even so, I expect the leader of our nation to be able to show restraint, think creatively, and engage in all other options before the use of force. There may be no choice, but my expectation is is that force is the last resort, not the first port of call.

Now, will John McCain nuke Iran? I don’t know. I’d like to think that he’s got a better head on his shoulders than that. But there is an alternative and I’m pretty sure that the alternative will not nuke Iran. Vote. Vote early, vote often. Get your family and friends and neighbors and colleagues to vote. This really matters. We may be able to recover from the last 8 years of mismanagement and deceit, but it’s unclear if we can recover from any further abuse of power, trust, and public funds.

This really matters. THIS. REALLY. MATTERS. VOTE!

HT: Ray

Well, they played to a draw last night. Neither Palin nor Biden crashed and burned in the way that I hoped for Palin and feared for Biden. What does it mean? Nothing. The pressure for Palin to recuse herself is now off with her performance. Biden didn’t look like an attack dog and alienate a huge group of voters. So net/net, nothing changes.

Who won? Who cares. Palin won by not getting blown off the stage and Biden won by controlling his emotions. On content, it was no contest, Biden won. An interesting thing for me is I listened to the first half of the debate on the radio in the car and then saw it replayed in its entirety later in the evening. My impression from listening was that Biden was blowing out Palin. Watching it however, I thought it was a much closer event.

One change I would like to see is this: if you can’t pronounce the word, you shouldn’t use the word. For instance, nuclear. It’s pronounced new-cle-ar, not new-queue-lar. Please, stop saying it if you don’t know how to pronounce it. I’m talking to you straight talk Sarah. I mean it, stop.

Hats off Eddie, I laughed and laughed at this. It’s great to have a little election humor when everything is in such a downward trend.

Who can forget the memorable Ms. South Carolina talk about why 1 in 5 “US Americans” can’t find the US on a world map? This morning while in the shower it reminded me that some time in the distant past, 5 children and heaven knows how many dead moose ago, our Republican Vice Presidential candidate was runner-up in a beauty contest. “Like, such as”, didn’t win.

If we fast forward 20 years, will Ms. South Carolina be the headliner on the ticket?

Now for your viewing pleasure, take a look at what unprepared beauty queens do under real media pressure. “Like, such as, South Africa”, is there a similarity? The vocabulary is advanced, but the reasoning may well be similar. You decide…

Since we seem to be treating these debates as sporting events with winners and losers, I thought I’d do a little preview of these like I do for Ohio State football games. Now, that being said, I can’t help thinking that no matter what the outcome, somehow, someway, the American people are going to be the losers…..but I digress.

The contenders: Joe Biden, experienced, blue collar, senator who takes the train home every night to be with his family. Sarah Palin, governor, mother, hunter, one of those people who clings to her god and her guns.

Sarah Palin will win if: she’s herself, she stays on topics she’s passionate about, goads Joe Biden into making stupid statements seen as condescending to women. Expectations of Palin are so low after her “hurricane ike” like media tour, if she manages to escape without both feet in her mouth, her supporters will claim victory.

Joe Biden will win if: he controls his ego and his mouth. All he needs to do is calmly display the depth of his knowledge and look presidential and let Palin do herself in. The key question is, will he be able to engage his internal censor to allow that to happen? Sorry to say, I think not.

What will happen? Palin will do better than expected and will re-establish some credibility with the conservative base. Don’t look for a Dan Qualye/Jim Stockdale like performance here. Biden will make some gaffes, but will be forgiven by the Democratic base and nothing will change overall after the debate. Should be interesting. And, GO BUCKS! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist…)