"Republican Debate Prep: What to Watch For in New Hampshire."

According to the NYT, you should look for:

* Romney vs. Obama...

* Pawlenty vs. Romney... The only question for Monday night is whether Mr. Pawlenty goes after Mr. Romney in his first answer, or if he waits until later in the debate.

* Bachmann’s Introduction.... In her first debate appearance, the often bombastic, conservative lawmaker is hoping to present herself as a serious, viable alternative to the other candidates in the field....

* Newt’s Return.... Can a strong debate performance help reassure donors and supporters that his campaign is not teetering on the edge of collapse?

* The Lesser-Knowns.... Representative Ron Paul of Texas is often a crowd-pleaser, especially with libertarians. Herman Cain.... And Rick Santorum...

* The Sideshow.... The Democratic National Committee has assembled a “rapid response” team in Manchester... The Progressive Change Campaign Committee will run an ad on broadcast and cable television attacking Republicans for what they say are attempts to end Medicare. Another group, Protect Your Care, will do the same, showing ads that say “Stop the Republican Plan to Cut Medicare.”

I would add: Look for live-blogging on Althouse! Is there any better place to hang out during the debate than in the comments here?

Shall we watch the Oscars together?

I don't know if I can do my usual live-blogging, but I will try to watch, and I'll put numbered comments up if I think of anything amusing. The main point of this post is to give you a place to comment if you're so inclined.

1. Loved Penelope Cruz's red dress.

2. Have you noticed how many of the men are chewing gum? Morgan Freeman, etc.

3. Sarah Jessica Parker is chewing gum. She's 44 and she looks 60, but she's sweet and enthused about the Chanel column of gold satin. Meanwhile, no one wants to talk to Matthew Broderick, who's gone gray and portly.

4. "I like seeing all my friends cleaned up and looking good" — Meryl Streep on what she likes best about the Oscars.

5. Yikes. This production number is more painful than the crap they make "American Idol" contestants do on elimination night. (Elimination... crap... hmmm....) Men in suits singing, surrounded by scantily clad showgirls waving feather fans... what is this, 1962? So retro. So pre-women's movement. Oh, phew, it's over. Now, the talking. Yeeze. Steve Martin looks like Spencer Tracy in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" ... i.e., just before he died.

6. Christopher Plummer looks way better indoors. Somehow the lighting bestows an artificial tan. Outdoors, he looked diseased.

7. Ah! Penelope Cruz again, in that dress. Lovely! She was last year's Best Supporting Actress, so she's giving the Best Supporting Actor award.  Dialogue chez Meadhouse: "Is that Robert Duvall?" "No, Woody Harrelson."... "Everyone knows Christoph Waltz is going to win." And he does. "Oscar and Penelope. That's an uber-bingo."

8. So the first predictable thing has happened. Will all the other predictable things happen to?

9. Sandra Bullock is "a member of the NRA" and "always packing"... according to the clip show of "The Blind Side."

10. Meadhouse dialogue: "IPad ad. Oh, man! Ohhhhhh!" "Still want one?" "Yeeeeaaaaahhhhh."

8a. "Up" wins animated pic. Predicatably.

8b. "The Hurt Locker" wins screenplay, not "Inglourious Basterds." That's not what was predicted, right? I wanted "A Serious Man." The acceptance speech is anti-Iraq-war, btw.

11. Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick introduce a tribute to John Hughes (who died in the past year). "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Beautifully done. Genuinely touching. That made the argument that pop culture is, in fact, deep.

8c. "Precious" for adapted screenplay.

8d. Best Supporting Actress, Mo'Nique. Predicted. But she says something interesting and unexpected: "It can be about the performance, and not the politics."

8e. Art Direction, "Avatar."

12. The tribute to horror movies ends with a cut to Quentin Tarantino loving it all. Nice. As for the clip show, I think it was argued that the 2 greatest horror flicks of all time are "Psycho" and "The Shining"... with music from "Psycho."

13. Sound editing... does anyone care? Did I mention costumes earlier? No. Then, mindcrushingly, sound mixing, a separate award. "Hurt Locker" with its amorphous, ponderous music, wins both. [NEXT MORNING CLARIFICATION: I know this award isn't about the music. I'm just complaining about the theme music the band played for this movie.]

8f. "Avatar" wins Visual Effects. Whoever this guy is who accepts the award says the movie is a film about "learning to see the world in new ways" and that sets me off cursing incoherently. 

14. In Memoriam, with James Taylor singing "In My Life." They gave Karl Malden the final spot, and that was not predicted. People thought it would be either Patrick Swayze (who was put first) or Natasha Richardson (who was tucked in the middle). Only one choked me up, Brittany Murphy. She was so young. Malden was 97. Nothing to be sad about. It's not, then, what's saddest. It's a tribute to life. "In My Life," not in my death.

15. I'm recording this with my DVR and pausing, then fast-forwarding. Otherwise it would be intolerable. Right now there's a dance routine (that's supposed to showcase the scores). It's ghastly. I watched a second, sped ahead, watched a second, cursed, paused, and am now waiting for enough time to pass for more fast-forwarding. Why must they waste our time with this musical crap?

16. I love film documentaries, but I don't care about any of these nominees. What the hell happened to this category?

17. "The White Ribbon" doesn't win best foreign film. I was all ready to do an "8g" entry. Wow. Thrilling. Hell. Get me out of here.

18. Wait. A good joke! "I want to thank the Academy for not considering Na'vi a foreign language."

8g. Come on, give Jeff Bridges the Best Actor award and get me out of here. Oh! The blather, praising each of the nominees. There's an insipid reference to "courage." I scream. Ah, finally, Kate Winslet comes out, in a dress made of steel — or fabric that looks like it — and she gives the award, of course, to Jeff Bridges. He whoops. He looks heavenward and addresses his parents. He says "groovy." He's going on too long. I groan. Meade says "He's The Dude."

8h. Another predictable one: Sandra Bullock gets Best Actress. She's wearing bright red lipstick and a pretty dress, beaded and sparkling. She rattles off a prepared speech. She chokes up and cries appropriately when she gets to the part about not thanking her mother.

19. "Oh, no!" "Why? Why?!" — another Meadhouse dialogue... as Barbra Streisand takes the stage. She's giving the Best Director award (for some reason). I guess this one isn't predictable, other than that it's one of 2, James Cameron or Kathryn Bigelow. "Well, the time has come," Barbra says, meaning that for the first time, a woman has won Best Director. It's Kathryn Bigelow.

20. The band plays her off the stage with "I Am Woman." Gag.

21. Tom Hanks does his part to nail the time. With 2 minutes left to go to the top of the hour, he blurts out "The Hurt Locker."

22. For all this honoring of "The Hurt Locker," did anyone say anything valuable and worthy about the war in Iraq? Bigelow praised the troops and wished for their safe return, but that's not what I mean. There's a lot of talk about the bravery of the filmmakers making the film. There was never anything said in support of the fighting in Iraq, but, to be fair, there was never any opposition to it expressed. In fact, I don't think there were any political statements tonight at all, unless you count Mo'nique's anti-political statement: "It can be about the performance, and not the politics." So: modesty. It's film art. Art, not politics.

MONDAY MORNING UPDATE: Wow. I did not enjoy that show at all. Surely, nothing made me want to go see a movie — or even look for it to come up on my cable Video on Demand. The actresses with their hard, frozen faces and their sinewy bodies encased in lavishly ruffled dresses showed that movies are no longer a source of fresh inspiration about beauty, femininity and womanhood. And frankly, I'm not sure what Mo'nique meant by "It can be about the performance, and not the politics." Maybe she just meant that she totally deserved the award on merit, and there were no "political" considerations in the sense of how career and business interests weigh into people's decisions. At the time, I thought that she meant that voters were able to appreciate the artistic value of the movie "Precious" instead of rejecting it because it isn't politically correct to depict black people as lowlifes. That was the only memorable thing that anyone said last night, and it's just a Rorschach test.

The New Year's Eve live-blog.

7:27 Central Time: Shouldn't you be out carousing? No. It's smart to stay in on the night when everyone else is out. So hang out here if you like. I hope you don't mind that I'm doing Central Time. But one must be somewhere? Where are you? Are you already in 2009? I see from Site Meter, that there are currently 142 people on the blog. There are readers in Dublin, Brighton, and Germany, so, hello, people of the future.

7:44: Celebrations around the world, but "A number of Arab nations - including Egypt, Jordan and Syria - cancelled planned celebrations in solidarity with Palestinians in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip after a fifth day of Israeli air-strikes on the coastal enclave."

8:24: Champagne cork popped.

8:44: I'm watching Mickey Kaus and Bob Wright doing their New Year's Bloggingheads.

9:27: "How cold is it in New York? Look at that jacket! What a candyass!" I exclaim, looking at Ryan Seacrest — whoops for a second there I called him Ryan Seaquest — who is wearing an overstuffed down jacket and ear muffs. We've turned on "Dick Clark's New York Rockin' Eve" — or whatever it's called. I check my iPhone. It's 19° in NYC. So: candyass! They go to commercial, and we switch to "South Park."

10:00: We're kind of excited about Kathy Griffin (along with Anderson Cooper) covering Times Square on CNN.

10:05: The sound technology on CNN is terrible! They're trying to talk to reporters in lots of different cities, and either they can't hear them or the crowd noise is blowing out the microphones. Now Anderson and Kathy can't hear each other when they are standing side by side. "Can we stop saying Pap smear?" Cooper asks, after Kathy makes a few Pap smear jokes.

10:52: CNN comes back from a commercial break with Lynyrd Skynyrd singing "Sweet Home Alabama" in Pikeville, Kentucky. It sounds terrible. Is it the CNN mikes? Or do they suck? Hey, is that Bill Clinton? Oh, that's not Kentucky now. It's New York City. And there's Hillary and Bloomberg. Bill is not wearing a puffy jacket. He's got a lovely brown leather jacket. Very attractive. He's got his values in order.

10:57: Close to the end in New York City. They're playing John Lennon singing "Imagine." Chris says: "It's sort of a downer of a song in the last 2 and a half minutes."

10:58: I'm kinda tired. Can I be on NY time?

10:59: The Clintons start the ball. The ball, the ball, the ball, the ball. Yay!!!! Happy New Year!!!!!!!

11:00: "Oh, I'm tired! Can I be on NY time?" "No! You have to be on the time that you're in!"

11:01: Oh! Good lord! The Clintons are dancing and it makes me cry! Now, Kathy and Anderson are dancing, and Kathy says to Anderson, "Are you seeing anyone?" and we all know that's a huge joke.

10:05: "2 thousand and 9. We got to the big 9." I say that, as if 9 is an especially magnificent numeral. CNN plays Frank Sinatra singing "New York, New York," then Ray Charles singing "America the Beautiful," then Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World."

10:08: Lot's of folks are wearing those 2009 glasses, and I suddenly realize that this is the last year for the 00 glasses. You'll have to wait until the year 3000 to wear glasses like that. Will we even have eyes in 3000?

11:30: We've finished the bottle of champagne, and I'm making herb tea, as if that will keep me up until midnight. I've muted the TV, which is really annoying me, and Chris and I are making lists of all the movies we saw in 2008 and putting them in order. This little effort wakes me up a bit. Here's my list:

The Fall
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Synecdoche, New York
The Reader
Mongol
Iron Man
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Faster, Bigger, Stronger
Standard Operating Procedure
U23D
Australia
Dark Knight
Children of Huang Shi
Doubt
Rachel Getting Married
Sex and the City

11:35: Chris IMs his movie list:

Milk
The Fall
The Reader
Synecdoche, New York
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
U23D
Mirrors
Rachel Getting Married
Sex and the City

11:40: A shot of Times Square: Everyone has cleared out. Weird. It was the place to be, and then it's nothing.

11:47: Okay, now, who's in the Central Time Zone with me? The Central Time Zone rules!

11:51: "We're the only ones here! This is like a really messed up bar!" So says Kathy Griffin, looking down at Times Square. Anderson Cooper explains the notion of time zones.

11:59: CNN is playing some crap music. This is not the way I want to end a year or indeed what I want to do anywhere.

12:00: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! We watched CNN do the countdown in New Orleans. It was really lamely done. "Wouldn't it be great if there was a hologram of the Clintons dancing there?" says Kathy Griffin. We laugh. First laugh of the year. That can't be the biggest laugh of the year. Let's hope there are many laughs.

UPDATE, 10/22/11: I'm just reading this by chance and laughing at that last line Let's hope there are many laughs. In the year I was anticipating, I met Meade in January, fell in love with him in February, and married him in August. 2009 was brimming with excitement and happiness... and many, many laughs.

UPDATE: 12/12/14: I'm just rereading this again, including my 2011 update calling attention to my the last line Let's hope there are many laughs, and I'm seeing that Meade, at 1/1/09, 7:51 AM, quoted that line and said:

"First laugh of the year. That can't be the biggest laugh of the year. Let's hope there are many laughs"

Raising my cup to that sentiment and taking my first sip of hot strong black coffee to that.

I am wishing Althouse and all her wacky worldly-wise wonderful readers a new year filled with hope, love, and friendship.

And laughter... always laughter.

Live-blogging the election returns!

5:01: Finally! Results. Settle in. Pour yourself a nice glass of win or whine, as you see fit.

5:37: "There's only one thing to take to a Kenyan election victory feast: a goat. Preferably still breathing - 'a sign of freshness' - and with big testicles, apparently the sign of quality breeding."

5:42: Per Fox News, McCain will lose (if he loses) because McCain's idea of the surge worked so well and because President Bush kept us free of terrorist attacks. The national security issues have receded into the shadows, and that makes it hard for McCain.

5:48: Polls about to close in a lot of places at the top of the hour, so let's while away the moments by looking at the sedate polling place where I arrived at 9:15. Enter:



Vote:



Drop by the church-school bake sale:



6:00: CNN declares Obama the winner in Vermont and McCain in Kentucky, which is unsurprising. It does not resolve Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Virginia. So does that mean that there is no overwhelming landslide for Obama? Or is CNN playing us (or playing it safe)?

6:16: Wolf Blitzer beams in a hologram from Chicago. It's Jessica Yellin, floating about oddly. It's also funny how obvious it is that she is being photographed outdoors. There is a subtle hunching against the elements that looks slightly daffy projected indoors. [Video.]

7:00: Polls just closed in a bunch of states, and CNN is only predicting the states that were very predictable. So the big blowout is not happening.

7:09: Elizabeth Dole crushed.

7:15: In the comments, there's quite a lot of talk of getting drunk. Palladian shows us what he's got lined up:



7:18: MSNBC calls Pennsylvania for Obama. Is that a cry for attention, or do they know something CNN and Fox don't?

7:33: CNN Headline News has Nancy Grace going on about a psychic looking for a missing toddler. I guess "Headline" doesn't mean what it used to. Now, it means holding pen for politicophobes.

7:40: Now, CNN calls Pennsylvania for Obama.

8:00: My state went for Obama. So did Michigan and Minnesota. Obama's at 179 electoral votes, with McCain at only 49.

8:04: Per CNN, twice as many voters said age was important as said race was important. But both groups tended to see that factor as a reason to vote for Obama.

8:34: CNN calls Ohio for Obama. "A huge, huge win," says Wolf Blitzer. "A huge, huge win," he says a second time.

8:34: Here, fiddle with this interactive map. It seems rather clear that Obama will win.

8:45: John King fiddles with the CNN interactive map to see if there is any way, given the states already called, that McCain could win. He gave him everything except Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington, and it was not enough to hit 270. So unless they've made some wrong calls -- and I vividly remember when Florida was called for Gore in 2000 -- McCain cannot win.

8:53: I hope the McCain supporters are holding up. Don't despair. Glenn Reynolds had an op-ed this morning saying: "[O]nce someone is duly and legally elected president, you do owe some respect to the office and the Constitution. And to your fellow Americans. I'm not an Obama fan, particularly, but a lot of people I like and respect are. To treat Obama as something evil or subhuman would not only be disrespectful toward Obama, but toward them. Instead, I hope that if Obama is elected, their assessment of his strengths will turn out to be right, and mine will turn out to be wrong." Yes, can we please not hate the President this time, for a change? (Or did I just rile you with the word "change"?)

9:01: More states called. Obama's up to 206 electoral votes... which doesn't include California (with 55). Do we have to keep watching?

9:08: "The Republican Party is getting a drubbing tonight, the likes of which we have never seen," says James Carville.

9:27: In the comments, Doyle asks, "You guys having fun?" Which provokes Palladian: "No, I wouldn't be having fun no matter who won this miserable election. But are you going to be having fun? It's not enough to sit around and bitch, you sour little cocksucker. You're in charge now! In charge of all of us! In charge of our future! You're not going to get to protect and govern only those that agree with you. You're going to have to protect and govern all of us, just like George Bush did with your sorry asses these last 8 years. We're ready for the brilliance, for the leadership, for the change and hope and all that. Time to deliver! Bring it on, doily!" Balfegor responds to the same question: "I am, actually. If we must endure the unendurable, and suffer the insufferable, we may as well have a bit of fun while we're at it. I am young, and may reasonably expect that, barring accidents, I will live to see a day when the Obama presidency is nothing more than a distant memory. And he may, after all, surprise us -- we know next to nothing about his ability to lead, or what he really believes, as he has hitherto studiously avoided any situation in which either could be put to the test."

10:00: CNN projects Obama as the winner!

10:01: I've been sitting here feeling completely cool and calm all evening. But that announcement -- that Obama has won -- gave me chills, made me almost cry. Something big has happened.

10:13: Karl Rove says "Every American should celebrate." That's on Fox, where there is some sedate but sincere celebration of the historic achievement: the first black President.

10:19: McCain speaks (over booing). "I deeply admire and commend him." He speaks of racial progress. "Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on earth." He urges us to "come together." "Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans."

10:37: Charles Krauthammer, on Fox, praises Obama as a self-made man, who came out of nowhere, with no real resources. He says we don't really know who he is, but we'll find out. But he seems to think -- I do too -- that Obama is not really an ideologue, but a sensible, intelligent, pragmatic man who will check the Democratic Congress.

10:52: CNN is showing the crowd -- gathered spontaneously -- around the White House. Are you where you can see or hear people celebrating in the streets? I'm not. The window is open on this warm night, but all I'm hearing is a train whistle in the distance.

10:58: Obama walks out on the stage in Chicago. He looks happy. It makes me feel happy enough to laugh out loud. Michelle is wearing a very strange dress, black with glowing redness spreading upward and downward from a black X across the midriff. The little girls look elegant, as if they'd grown much older since we saw them this morning. He compliments McCain. He tells his girls they're getting a puppy. He gives us all credit for his victory. We understand "the enormity of the task that lies ahead." (Yikes!) He's going to listen to us, but he wants us to help him "rebuild this nation." "Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility." Let's not be partisan and petty. Let's remember Abraham Lincoln. He was a Republican. He faced a nation more divided than it is now. But he reached out to them. And we share a destiny with everyone in the world. "Democracy, opportunity, and unyielding hope." "America can change. Our union can be perfected." Now, he's in a sing-song poetic part of the speech, with the refrain "Yes we can." The crowd catches on and shouts the refrain. "Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America."

Live-blogging the big "town hall" debate.

6:14 Central Time: I'm just setting up the post so you'll know I'm doing this again.

8:11: After they blame each other for the financial crisis, Obama tells us we don't want to hear them blaming each other. We just want to know how to stay in our homes and pay our bills. McCain sounds a little shaky and winded. He's wearing a shiny dark suit and a pink and red striped tie. Obama -- in an unshiny suit and a blue-purple tie -- seems relaxed. He's got a casual way of sitting on the stool.

8:20: The first 3 questions have been about the crisis, the third being, quite sensibly: How can we trust you guys who let us get into this trouble in the first place? McCain points to his record, and repeatedly tells us he's reached across the aisle. Does that make you trustworthy? The 2 men seem mainly to be recycling their old talking points more than speaking directly to the crisis.

8:28: An old woman emails in her demand that people be asked to make sacrifices. McCain repeats his ideas about cutting spending, and makes a second reference to an overhead projector that Obama procured for the Chicago planetarium. Again with the earmarks. What was the dollar figure on earmarks? I heard $1 billion. That seems like nothing compared to the $750 billion bailout. And what is the sacrifice? Not getting more earmarks? Obama reminds us of the way Bush told us after 9/11 to "go out and shop." Bush, it seems, could have demanded sacrifices, but Obama doesn't say what we should have sacrificed then or now, though he does advise us to be energy efficient. It's really not too inspiring, but I think Obama is trying to seem cool, solid, and not at all exciting. In the background, we see McCain writing, awkwardly, on a note pad, and maybe some of us think about McCain's sacrifices.

8:37: Tom Brokaw is in control! Obama will not be permitted to say something about taxes because "it's important." Ha ha. As I was writing "it's important," O said "it's important" again.

8:41: McCain thinks he's making a big funny by saying "I'll answer the question!" Because, you know, Obama didn't want to go on to the next question before. No one laughs, but he looks so happy with his wisecracks. "Too many lobbyists workin' there," he says, and I think he's trying to sound Palinesque.

8:44: McCain's plan seems to be to sound passionate and caring. And to say "Lieberman" frequently.

8:46: Jac is live-blogging too: "9:30 - Cringe-inducing word choice from Obama: "A lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11..." He can safely assume we all remember."

8:47: I love Brokaw. Watch the damned lights! He finds it hard to believe the candidates aren't watching the lights. Obama pops up and says he's just trying to keep up with McCain. In other words, he did it first! That seemed a little dorky and childish.

8:50: I was just admiring Obama's elegant gestures with his long, thin hands, when McCain positioned himself in the background and made a hand gesture that can only be described as holding an invisible grapefruit in front of your chest.

8:55: Obama says that health care should be a right. (McCain called it a "responsibility.") Obama seems relaxed and smiling but also oddly pissed that McCain has been "throwing a lot of things out there."

9:01: We've finally arrived at foreign policy, and McCain seems very relieved. Obama takes the subject of Iraq and ties it to the economy: Iraq has a surplus, so why are we spending our money over there? He's made this argument many times, but it has more resonance this week.

9:05: What is Obama's standard for when we should intervene for purely humane reasons, where there are no American interests? I hear no statement of doctrine. What is McCain's doctrine? We should intervene whenever there is a genocide if we have the means to improve the situation. (That's why he stood up to Reagan about Lebanon.)

9:14: Obama says McCain has called him "green behind the ears." Some sort of moss or fungus?

9:27: The question is how we would respond to an attack by Iran on Israel, and McCain makes a strong connection to the military man in the audience who asked the question. Obama's answer recycles material about energy independence. He talks about negotiations and diplomacy. Okay, and then? What if there is an attack? Will you be there? I can't tell.

9:30: "What don't you know and how will you learn it?" A cute question. Cute and disturbing. Obama decides to just deliver his prepared closing statement. The last 8 years sucked. Can't get the same a different result doin' the same thing, so we need change. McCain says what he doesn't know is what we all don't know: the stuff that's going to happen in the future! [CORRECTION, made at 6:53 am: We'd really be screwed if evening doing something different made a different result impossible. I apologize for the accidental pessimism. I will endeavor to confine myself, in the future, to pessimism of the intentional kind.]

9:34: I began this live-blog with a big mug of lapsang souchong tea, but about 15 minutes ago, I switched to cognac:



9:42: Wow. Over 600 comments! I'll need to go in there and see what you folks are saying. For now though, let's do a little poll:

Who won?
	Obama.
	McCain.
	Both.
	Neither.
pollcode.com free polls

9:55: I was scrolling through my HDTV recording, looking to photograph the "invisible grapefruit," and I noticed that Obama was wearing an earpiece. I photographed the freeze-frame and have set up a new post to display it.

10:09: I reconsider the perception of an earpiece. I don't see it in other frames. I'm sure a real secret earpiece would be way less visible, inside the ear canal.

11:21: I'm reading the comments, and the general opinion is that the debate was very boring. It was boring to me, because they were saying things I've heard before. Maybe some people are listening closely for the first time, and for them, it might have been interesting. But it should have been new and exciting for all of us, given the events of the past week.

6:55 am: When I woke up this morning, I decided to concentrate my mind on the question which man won.... Ah, what am I doing in this old post? Making a couple corrections. My new morning perceptions will be in new post.

Live-blogging the VP debate.

7:31, Central Time: I'm here, eating strozzapreti with burned tomato sauce, counting the last few minutes before the grand showdown.

7:39: Strozzapreti? "Priest choker"!

7:55: Are you going to watch on CNN, with the uncommitted viewers' reaction lines undulating at the bottom of the screen? Wow. That's crazy! I can't tolerate that distraction, and the "persuadable" voters they've assembled are... not people I feel like monitoring on a real-time basis.

7:58: What are you looking for, mainly? Honestly, I'm mainly looking to see if Sarah Palin can sound reasonably competent.

8:02: The 2 candidates stride out, both dressed in black. "Hey, can I call you Joe?" we hear Sarah say. Palin looks tiny behind her lectern. She's behind her lectern there, and here's where I am, chez Althouse:



8:06: Palin's flag pin is way bigger than Biden's. Biden has a brown dot on his forehead. Palin refers to "the fundamental" of our economy. She's speaking too quickly, sounding nervous.

8:09: Whose fault is the sub-prime mortgage meltdown? Palin says the moneylenders have taken advantage of people, and she mentions "hockey moms" a second time. Biden blames Republican deregulation. Biden's forehead wrinkles only way over on the side, while the whole center is smooth and flat. What do you think? Botox?

8:13: Palin says she might not answer the questions the way the monitor wants, but she's going to talk straight to the American people. She reveals her overarching strategy. And I note that she's speaking clearly and confidently. There is no stumbling or fear, as far as I can see.

8:19: Joe Biden is going to "eliminate those wasteful spending."

8:27: I'll bet a lot of people are tuning out about now, satisfied that Palin is competent and smart, but pretty bored.

8:29: I'm reading Andrew Sullivan: "Biden is just dreadful. He speaks in Washingtonese. She just issues the soundbites and wrinkles her eyes and tells stories. And that works. The speed and chirpiness she delivers overwhelms one's ability to even quite absorb what she's saying. And it has put Biden off-stride. It's Biden who seems over-crammed." It seems to me that both of them are spewing policy (and it's getting tiresome). "Chirpiness"... I don't know, Andrew... that reads as sexist to me. Why is she overwhelming your ability to absorb what she's saying? Is she working some voodoo on you... and on Biden?

8:34: Palin said "Senator O'Biden."

8:35: Palin razzes Biden on clean coal. Is he for it or not? Biden says he's for it, and his rope-line comment was about his support for exporting clean coal technology to China. That doesn't seem to fit the text of his remark (which he claims was "taken out of context").

8:37: Biden passionately expresses support for equal treatment for same-sex couples, and Palin opposes same-sex marriage, but says that in all other ways she's completely tolerant of adults forming their own relationships. Biden then is given the opportunity to disavow gay marriage, which he eagerly does. Okaaaay.

8:40: Palin is praising the surge and insisting on victory in Iraq. "It would be a travesty if we quit now." Biden complains that she didn't state a plan. On the split screen, when Biden is speaking, Palin looks like she's brimming with ideas she's just waiting to express. When she gets her turn, she says Biden's plan is a "white flag of surrender." She reminds Biden of how much he supported McCain and how he said Obama was not ready to be President.

8:49: Biden is mugging and scratching his neck in an exaggerated way. I think he was trying to signal his objection to the things Palin was saying about Obama's willingness to sit down with Ahmadinejad.

8:51: Biden's heating up! Is he losing his temper?

8:55: At Drudge:



8:57: Well, let me ask:

Who's winning?
	Palin.
	Biden.
	It's not about winning and losing in the debate.
	Shut up! It's not over.
pollcode.com free polls

9:03: Palin enthuses over her Washington outsider status as she claims to hear Biden saying, essentially, I was for it before I was against it.

9:09: "Palin: 'Oh, man, it's so obvious that I'm a Washington outsider and just not used to the way you guys operate!' And then, Biden pats down his brow. On sheer theatrics, Palin definitely won that moment." LOL. That's Jac (my son), who's also live-blogging.

9:11: "There you go again. Say it ain't so, Joe." Palin was waiting to say that. Biden's error? Linking McCain to Bush. Palin seems supercharged. The question is education, and she's praising teachers and winking at her dad in the audience.

9:13: Palin gets a big laugh saying that she and Biden made "lame jokes" back in the beginning of the debate when they avoided answering the question what they wanted to do as VP. Clearly, she's really relaxed. The end is in sight, and she knows she's done well. She's stood her ground next to Biden. She hasn't stumbled, and he's seemed a bit boring.

9:25: Asked what he's changed his opinion about, Biden says he came to realize that judicial ideology matters. (Which is why he opposed Bork.) Palin says she's never had to compromise.

9:29: We've reached the prepared closing statements. So Palin has survived... more than survived. She won, I think most people will say. Now, she's able to say she likes to do these unscripted things. She quotes Ronald Reagan (again) and mentions "freedom" (again and again).

9:31: Biden gives his closing statement. He seems like a nice man. Did he ever attack her?

9:34: Huge crowd of family on the stage.

9:36: The final poll:

It's over now, so who won?
	Biden
	Palin
	Neither
pollcode.com free polls

POST-DEBATE: Let me highlight some comments. Stupe said...

Althouse can't just eat normal foods, she needs trendy.

She doesn't go to chain restaurants, and her cuisine needs to reflect her offbeat, edgy, urbane, t[r]endy life.

Is burning the sauce now a trend? Or do I create the trend? If so, I can't help but be trendy. Is there a strozzapreti trend? I just picked the pasta that had a shape that appealed to me. So just be yourself, Stupe, and believe it's all very trendy, and that might make you happy. Don't think about me. Or, hell, think about me until it drives you crazy.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

The hair in [Sarah Palin's] eye is bothering my husband.

Ha ha. That was bugging me too. I was distracted thinking about whether she was distracted thinking about whether it would be more distracting to disentangle her bangs from her (false?) eyelashes than to allow the bangs-eye combo to continue as a single unit.

Lisa said...

So far, she sounds smart, sane and Republican.

The left will hate her. The right will agree with her.

(Lisa said baby on a night like this...)

vbspurs said...

Does Palin have ice water in her bloodstream or is it me?

She's almost too un-nervous. It's making me nervous!

LoafingOaf said...

What a twitchy, nervous wreck Palin is!

Palladian said...

Sarah Palin's pussy is gnawing at LoafingOaf's brain again.

vbspurs said...

OOOOOOH. A little lesbian tension between Palin and Ifill just now. HAWT.

(It's late-night Althouse.)

Michael_H said...

I don't want to channel surf--anyone know the Brewers/Phillies score?

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Gwen's questions SUCK! Too complex. Easily ignored.

Trooper York said...

Phillies won 5 to 2.

Go 2 up on the series.

Michael_H said...

Ifill keeps cutting Palin off, then letting Joey Plugs run as long as he wants.

Really?

vbspurs said...

The 'Mos are getting their questions now. Surprising nod to Palin by Ifill.

I smell a skunk. Or a fish taco.

!!!

ex-prosecutor said...

If these were two lawyers, arguing, to a jury, she'd be killing him.

palladian said...

God, the only thing more boring than a Vice Presidential debate is baseball. I'd rather listen to Joseph Biden filibuster than listen to people talk about baseball. I'd rather watch "An Inconvenient Truth" 100 times than listen to people talk about baseball. SHUT UP ABOUT BASEBALL.

vbspurs said...

Nice! "Not sane or stable" about Dinner Jacket.

THE CASTRO BROTHERS. She just won Florida, que rico!!!

lem said...

Gwen went off the script to help Joe!

michael_h said...

Love the way Palin smiles as she's making notes while Joey Plugs speaks.

chip ahoy said...

No fair! They televise the back of Biden's head to show all the work was done in the front.

lawgiver said...

Cuda is landing some major body shots now. Joe's eyes are glazed, he's going downnnnnn!

john stodder said...

Palin is just so damn normal.

On TV it looks weird to be normal.

goesh said...

500+ comments - holy wow

Palin's faster pace makes her come across as very competent/intelligent, a bit smarter than Biden - she sure the heck exudes confidence - what happened to the dummy from up north???? gone, gone, gone

palladian said...

I love the milling around parts of C-SPAN broadcasts. So much better than listening to talking heads blabber.

ricpic said...

Sarah's happy.

Lefty freaks can't stand happy.

But normal human beings love happy and love Sarah.

joan said...

Karl Rove just ticked off 10 major gaffes by Joe Biden. It was hysterical.

schorsch said...

Regardless of who won, Biden's tactic failed. He was there to debate Bush and McCain, and to ignore Palin as if she wasn't worthy of his attention. She engaged him, specifically, and was therefore the only person in the debate that was actually occurring.

MORE FROM THE COMMENTS: patca said...

I am soooo relieved--and very happy. She was fabulous.

I feel like smoking a cigarette.

The morning after the debate.

It's tempting to go back into the live-blog, when it's become the dead-blog, and punch it up with sober observations, quotes from the transcript, and links to the things other bloggers were saying in real time when I was too busy listening and writing to read much of anything (even to proofread myself).

But I'll resist that temptation. New writing needs to be in today. Why it's almost 9. Central.

What was I sleeping about all this time? It's not as if I spent last night drunk-blogging, like some people -- "I’m going to miss some stuff now, while I go shake another martini" -- or playing drinking games, despite joking about them. I was green-tea blogging.

***

Did all the other live-bloggers suddenly decide to put the newest entries on top within a single post? Should I switch to that? I don't really like scrolling down and then back up, but the question is: Do you want to favor the readers who are doing a lot of page-refreshing and return-visiting? Top-to-bottom within a single, frequently updated post is easier for someone who joins you late or who stops by only once.

Which reminds me, dear return visitors, I need to put some fresh things here for you, but feel free to use this post as a place to get started talking about anything you like.

Live-blogging the big debate.

7:22 Central Time: Yes, I'm here, ready to go. Eager. This is big!

7:58: In the comments, we're setting the terms for the drinking game: I said:

Take a sip if McCain says "my friends" or if Obama says "uh."

Palladian said:

Dear God, woman, are you trying to kill people? Alcohol is poisonous in large quantities!

8:03: May the best man win. Jim Lehrer sounds stern! First question: take a position on the finance crisis.

8:04: Obama: "Move swiftly... and wisely... have oversight...." Don't pad the bank accounts of the rich. The whole problem is the fault of the other party. McCain: He begins with "thoughts and prayers" for "the lion of the Senate," Ted Kennedy, who's in the hospital now. He emphasizes that Republicans and Democrats are working together in dealing with the crisis.

8:08: Lehrer pushes them to take a position on the plan. Obama says he hasn't seen it. Ooh, I just saw Jon Stewart savage McCain last night for saying he hadn't read it. Obama's not taking a position. Come on! Take a position! He doesn't. McCain says "sure," he'll vote for it but immediately veers into an anecdote about Eisenhower and railing against greed. "Greed is rewarded." Both candidates look fresh and sharply outlined on the HDTV.

8:13: Lehrer wants them to talk to each other, but they don't much seem to want to. Next question: Are there fundamental differences between what McCain and Obama would do about the economy? McCain says we need to get spending under control... "earmarking as a gateway drug." Obama's a big spender. Obama said earmarks are abused, but earmarks are only $18 billion of the budget and McCain wants $300 billion in tax cuts. So the difference (in what they promise) is clear: McCain would cut spending and Obama would collect more taxes. McCain says those earmarks corrupt people, and Obama is proposing $800 million in new spending. Obama looks annoyed. He doesn't know where that number comes from. McCain looks a little pleased, I think, because he knows he's gotten to Obama.

8:20: McCain says pork-barrel spending is "rife," it's appalling. We see Obama raising a finger. He wants to be called on. Lots of arguing back and forth about who supported what.

8:26: Lehrer asks what sacrifices will be required. Obama mainly talks about things he wants to spend on. McCain says we've let government get out of control. He'd cut ethanol subsidies. (Good!) He'd eliminate cost-plus contracts. He speaks of saving $6 billion on one deal. Lehrer presses them, and Obama starts talking about spending again. (By the way, he is not saying "uh.") Lehrer gets excited about doing something different to deal with the current crises. McCain mentions a spending freeze. Obama objects and mentions another thing he'd like to spend on (early childhood education). Lehrer reasks the question: What difference will the crisis make? Obama talks about values. McCain talks about spending cuts. Obama questions McCain's record. McCain says, for a second time, that he wasn't elected Miss Congeniality in the Senate. (Should have put that in the drinking game.)

8:39: What have they learned from Iraq? McCain says we've learned how to fight the right way and to avoid defeat. Obama thinks we've learned we shouldn't have started the war in the first place.

Whoops. I've been calling Lehrer MacNeil... corrected.

8:44: McCain excoriates Obama for failing to support victory and for not acknowledging victory. Obama says the difference in opinion was only about whether there was a timetable or not. There's a hot dispute here. McCain gesticulates and smiles. Obama looks a little pissed off and interrupts a few times with the muttered phrase "That's not true."

8:51: Obama calls Pakistan "Pah-ki-stahn." Repeatedly.

8:52: McCain is not prepared to threaten Pakistan. You don't aim a gun if you aren't prepared to pull the trigger.

8:54: Obama denies that he talked about attacking Pahkistahn. He's just ready to "take out" al Qaeda if we know they are in there. He teases McCain about singing "bomb bomb Iran."

9:00: McCain stresses his empathy for soldiers. He's got a bracelet. Obama's got a bracelet too. He cares too. Jac writes (he's live-blogging too):

"I've got a bracelet." "I've got a bracelet too!" Are these serious adults running for president, or is this summer camp?

9:04: McCain gets fired up talking about Obama's willingness to talk without precondition with Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is talking about exterminating Israel, he exclaims. McCain stumbles over the name Ahmadinejad a bit, and I'm not sure if he's expressing genuine hatred for the man or is just getting fired up about a strong line of attack against Obama. Obama doesn't seem that irritated. He laughs a little. When he gets his turn, Obama needles him about, among other things, Spain. McCain inserts what must be a prepared barb: "I don't even have a seal yet."

9:15: We get a "my friend" out of McCain as he says Obama is "parsing words" about "preconditions, and he emphasizes how long he's been friends with Henry Kissinger. (Obama had cited Kissinger for the proposition that we ought to speak to everyone.)

9:18: The subject is Russia. McCain accuses Obama of naivete. He says: "I looked into Putin's eyes and I saw three letters, a K, a G, and a B." McCain is reeling off names of people and places in Georgia and Ukraine. He's got a strategy of displaying experience and making Obama seem green. Obama's given a chance and he mainly says he agrees.

9:25: Much crossfire over nuclear waste.

9:26: The last question is about terrorism. The main distinction here is that Obama views Iraq as a distraction and McCain thinks it's central.

9:31: Both men have been sharp and clear, and I haven't noticed mistakes. As expected, McCain is more passionate, but he never crossed the line into irascibility. Obama is cooler, but he never fell into that professorial mode that he uses sometimes. He certainly didn't stumble and babble incoherently, which is what his opponents say he does.

9:48: They didn't much go for that idea of talking directly to each other, did they? I mean, other than Obama's frequent assertion that McCain was getting something wrong.

9:54: In the end, I'd say, McCain made more good points and got in more punches, but Obama stood his ground and maintained his stature on stage next to McCain, even as McCain repeatedly tried to portray him as a lightweight. I should add that McCain never seemed too old, short, or lacking in vigor, even on HDTV. Obama looked fine too, and I never saw that upturned face, with the eyes gazing downward, that made him seem supercilious in those old debates with Hillary Clinton.

Should I live-blog the Democratic Convention?

Should I live-blog the Democratic Convention?
	Yes, in detail, please.
	Yes, if you're in the mood, but only what strikes your fancy.
	No. It's not worth the trouble. Just put up a post, and let commenters take over.
	No. I'm not interested in this subject at all.
pollcode.com free polls

Debate tonight. I'll be liveblogging.

Watch this space. It will be elongated — starting at 8 Eastern Time — with quirky observations and peevish intuitions. I'm very interested to see how those two relate to each other after all these (nasty) weeks apart. Strong acting skills will be required.

Obama will, no doubt, take a stance above the fray. Be cool but — be careful! — you'd better not seem aloof — don't look down on that shorter person next to you! — or we will see that image the Hillarists want to project on you. Hillary has the devious power of nothing to lose. She'll be looking for every opportunity to unsettle him, to provoke an error, to rephrase something he's said and make it sound unsavorily San Franciscan.

8:00. Opening statements are thoroughly bland. Oh, good lord, they're already going to commercial. I'll bet they lose a lot of audience. Here in NYC, the debate show is playing in between "Spongebob" and "Family Guy."

8:08. They're asked to pick each other as their running mate. Awkward! Obama says it's "premature." Hillary follows suit.

8:13. The bitter small-town religion clingers quote is thrown at Obama, who says he can see how it offended some people. So can Hillary. Hillary keeps dropping the names of places in Pennsylvania.

8:18. Hillary is challenged over a statement she made that Obama can't win. After some harrumphing, she concedes that Obama can win. Obama then concedes that Hillary can win.

8:24. Obama is asked why didn't he disassociate himself from Jeremiah Wright sooner. He mainly relies on the assertion that he hadn't heard most of the bad statements. At some point he says "someone I've disowned" and has to correct it to "statements I've disowned." Given her chance, Hillary brings up Wright's connections to Farrakhan and Hamas. "These are questions," she says.

8:35. Hillary does a good job of owning up to her Bosnian sniper fire gaffe.

8:41. Obama is asked about his patriotism. First, the easy part: Why not wear a flag pin? That's a "manufactured issue." He reveres the flag, and he does wear the pin sometimes. Then the hard question: Why is he friendly with William Ayres (once a member of the Weather Underground)? This is another "game" in O's view. The man is an English professor who lives in his neighborhood, and Obama was 5 years old when Ayres participated in the Weather Underground. Given her chance, Hillary recites some of Ayres's bad behavior, including his relatively recent statement that he wishes he'd "done more." Obama comes back with the fact that Bill Clinton pardoned 2 members of the Weather Underground.

8:52. Do they really have a plan to bring troops home from Iraq? If the military commanders told you that pulling the troops out will destabilize Iraq, would you still go through with your plan? Hillary: Yes. But her plan is only to "begin" to withdraw troops within 60 days and to proceed with caution from there. The idea is for Iraqis to get the message that they need to take over. Obama follows suit. "The President sets the mission." He'll listen to the commanders on the ground "with respect to tactics," but he provides the "mission." Mission. Tactics. Mission. Tactics. Get it?

9:01. Israel. Iran. Taxes. It's devolved into the usual policy recitation. The candidates sound fine, but you can read the transcript.

9:22: Obama is talking about a drastic rise in Social Security taxes for people making more than $97,000. We have to do something, and raising the retirement age is unacceptable. Could someone explain why? We live much longer than in the days when Social Security began, and many fewer people were expected to live to collect payments. If we live longer, shouldn't we work to an older age?

9:24. It's the anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings. People are saying a prayer. It takes a fraction of a second for Obama to bow his head. Prayer: Bows head. Great reflexes! That's just an intro to a question about gun control. Hillary keeps talking about Mayor Nutter — love the name. Both Hillary and Obama do exactly what you'd expect them to do: Distinguish between the good guys, who deserve respect as they go their traditional ways, and the bad guys, who deserve regulation. We can be sensible. Balanced. Don't give guns to "the mentally deranged," Obama advises. That's all very nice but do you support the D.C. ban, the one that's before the Supreme Court? Hillary waffles about how she doesn't know the facts. She does a federalism riff: What might work in New York is certainly not going to work in Montana.

9:33. Obama is asked whether affirmative action should be changed so that affluent African Americans like his daughters are not given advantages and maybe poor whites are. He recommends looking at all the factors for each individual. Race is one factor. But look at the whole person. (That's exactly in line with the Supreme Court case law.) Hillary thinks we need "affirmative action generally," by which she seems to mean that we need programs that reach very young kids, kindergarten and so forth. She's suddenly speaking very fast and energetically. This is her area of special expertise. It's quite striking how different she sounds on this subject. She dutifully responds to questions about national security, but she comes alive talking about children. Ah, but now she's talking about gas prices and she's still hypercharged. Maybe she's looking at the clock and knows she needs to cram more into the little time that's left. By contrast, Obama's tone and speed remain utterly consistent.

9:39. Obama laughs "heh heh heh heh heh" when Hillary is asked about how she'd use former Presidents, specifically George W. Bush.

9:47. Make your pitch to the superdelegates. Hillary: I'm a fighter. I'm ready. Obama: I will lift you up. I'm new. I'm different.

9:51. Good night, everybody.

7:16 AM. I sum up the general reaction to the debate and express my opinion here.

Live-blog the YouTube debate with me.

Let's cover tonight's debate in the comments. That way there will be automatic time stamps and we'll have a nice dialogue format. Get ready.

Here's a pretty sunset while you're waiting:



That happened tonight. I'm not palming off some other night's sunset. That's tonight's sunset.

ADDED: Come into the comments and talk about the debate.

UPDATE, NEXT MORNING: Lots of comments! Did you like this approach to live-blogging? Let me sum up what I thought:

1. Anderson Cooper is a very weak moderator. He's a nice-looking man, but he had no authority, and, as a result, the candidates did whatever they wanted, which was actually revealing and interesting. It was really bad, however, when he allowed the retired general in the audience to hold the mike and lecture us on gays in the military. Once the point was made, that man had no right to consume air time like that, and Cooper was incompetent at stopping him. It seemed that at one point someone cut the mike, but then Coooper didn't take advantage of that to move on, he made efforts to get the mike back and to give the man more time. If that was supposed to be an expression of Anderson's own commitment to gay rights, it was: 1. inappropriate, and 2. inept.

2. Giuliani was good — nice and scrappy at the beginning, which set the tone the others had to deal with. Giuliani made Romney seem stiff and nervous, and he did a nice job turning the charge of "sanctuary city" back on Romney with "sanctuary mansion" — a memorable phrase.

3. CNN seemed to choose the YouTube videos that would show individuals who would repel a sizable segment of Americans: the guy with the gun, the kid with the Confederate flag, the Christian with the Bible. Or are you going to tell me CNN just loves props?

4. Thanks to everyone who participated in the comments. I think people did a great job!

Another debate tonight? Okay, I guess I'm simulblogging again...

This is getting bizarre! Are people really watching? Anyway... I'm going to watch. I'll try to pay more attention tonight, now that "The Sopranos" aren't on.

(It's on CNN, at what I like to call 6 Central Time.)

UPDATE #1: Introductions. "My name is Thompson. Tommy. I'm the candidate, not the actor." Giuliani says he believes in the New Hampshire slogan "Live Free or Die." Huckabee says he's from Hope: "Give us one more chance."

UPDATE #2: The first question goes to Romney. Was it a mistake to invade Iraq? Romney resists the hypothetical (and twice calls it a "null set"). He won't assume a world where we know what we didn't know. Giuliani goes right for it: it would still be "absolutely right" to remove Saddam -- "it's part of the war on terror." McCain gets a different question: Did he read the National Intelligence Estimate. He clearly states that he did not (but read other documents and knew what the situation was). He goes back to the other question voluntarily and says the decision was right.

UPDATE #3: McCain is asked what he will do if General Petraeus reports in September that the surge is failing. There is no option to bring the troops home. Al Qaeda will follow us, and there will be chaos. He attacks Hillary Clinton for saying this is George Bush's war. Wars belong to the whole nation, and it is we who lose, and we cannot. Wolf Blitzer brings him back to the question asked. We'll have to examine the options then, he says, but Brownback's proposal -- to divide Iraq into three ethnic regions -- isn't physically possible. We have to go on, even if the surge hasn't worked. Tommy gets the question now. He speaks forcibly and says we should force the Iraqi government to vote whether they want us to stay or go.

UPDATE #4: The question is Iran. Is it acceptable to talk to them? This is a boring question, so Blitzer spices it up by asking if it's okay to nuke them. When the question gets to Giuliani, it's all about: Can we nuke them? Giuliani: "You can't rule out anything." The Democrats are living in the last century. Iran could hand nukes over to terrorists. "This war is not a bumper sticker," he says, referencing Edwards's remark in the last Democratic debate. "This war is a real war." Romney: He wants to "move the world of Islam... toward modernity." He says a lot of other things, speaking quickly, and it's too scattershot. He sounds nervous and a little desperate for some reason. In the background, we see Giuliani, looking rock hard.

UPDATE #5: Immigration. Giuliani says the current proposal "has no unifying purpose." We need a way to identify everyone who's here from a foreign country. Credit card companies handle more information that this. He's cut off. On to Romney, who says we should enforce the immigration laws, but the proposal would let all the illegal aliens stay here for the rest of their lives. It's not fair to put all those people at the front of the line. So what does McCain say? "Rudy, you just described our legislation." He ends by saying he'd love to hear it if anyone has a better idea, and the audience goes into an uproar and half the guys on the stage seem to want to jump in. Various proposals flow in, mainly about enforcing the law we do have.

UPDATE #6: Incredible! Giuliani is asked about the Catholic bishop's remark that his position on abortion is like Pontius Pilate's washing his hands of the crucifixion, and Giuliani's answer is buzzed out as lightening outside the hall affects the microphone. He jokes that for someone who's gone to Catholic school "it's very frightening." As he tries to restate his position, the buzzing continues to interrupt him. Yikes. Huckabee is asked about his belief in creationism, and he does an amazing job of turning it into the question of whether he believes in God and passionately affirms that he does. Blitzer follows up with the question whether he believes in the literal creation story in the Bible. He says he doesn't know, but he does know that God created us. Brownback is asked where he stands on evolution, and he makes a similar move. McCain is asked whether children should be taught creationism. He says he'd leave it up to the local government, then jumps on the Huckabee train and says there is a God who created us and loves us. Romney's asked to talk about being a Mormon. He stresses the beliefs that are shared with other Christians.

UPDATE #7: Global warming. Blah, blah... Gays in the military. "This is not a good time to deal with disruptive issues like this," says Giuliani. Romney: Don't ask, don't tell is working; don't change it during wartime. McCain: "The policy is working." Our military is the best, so don't change it.

UPDATE #8: How would you use George W. Bush in your administration? Tommy would send him out to talk to kids. Brownback would ask him what he wants to do... and thinks he'd want to bow out the way his father did (and unlike Bill Clinton). Ron Paul Tancredo says that Karl Rove told him to stay away from the White House so he'd tell George Bush the same thing.

UPDATE #9: Should the President pardon Scooter Libby? Giuliani says the sentence was "grossly excessive," and this argues in favor of pardon. He adds weight to his answer by saying he's prosecuted over 5,000 cases. Romney and Brownback stress that there was no underlying crime about which Libby committed perjury. Tommy Thompson compares what happened to Libby to what happened to Bill Clinton for committing perjury. Clinton just lost his law license. Well, he got impeached! He was tried in the Senate and he prevailed. The difference from Libby is that when Libby went to trial, he lost. Anyway, the support for pardoning Libby is so pervasive here, that I suppose we should assume that in the end, if the appeals fail, Bush will pardon Libby.

UPDATE #10: Now, after a break, the candidates are sitting in red chairs, and the questions are from the audience. The first question comes from a woman whose brother was killed in Iraq. She mainly expresses the devastation her family is feeling. McCain's response is what you would expect, but he says it well and sincerely: She should feel proud of his sacrifice. The second question is also about Iraq. How will we keep Iraq from ending up with another dictator? Ron Paul says give them "an incentive," essentially, by leaving them to do the work of securing the country themselves. Whoa! Giuliani gets out of his chair and walks forward and talks directly to various audience members. We have to "take on the responsibility of nation building." Overthrowing Saddam was a brilliant military success, and now we must accept the responsibility that this incurred. He brings up the earlier question about General Petraeus and the surge, but just to insinuate that the news media will play up the report if it's negative and bury it if it's positive.

UPDATE #11: A question about conservatism. Gilmore answers. Like Giuliani, he gets up out of his chair. I guess they all will now. No, Tancredo stays seated. Thompson leans toward him and glares. Now, a man asks about prescription drugs. Giuliani hops up to denounce the Democrats as offering "socialized medicine." He tells us all about his health insurance plan, under which you'd buy your own insurance with the help of tax benefits and not rely on government or your employer. The the free market will solve the problem of overpriced drugs. Another question about health insurance: Would you accept a single-payer plan? Thompson is roused. This is the question for him. He wants to transform the whole system into a "wellness" and "prevention" system. He's stressing educating people about smoking and obesity.

UPDATE #12: What's the most important moral challenge? Giuliani says we need to share American ideals with the world (that is, he makes this another anti-terrorism question). Ron Paul says it's our acceptance of preemptive war. For Brownback, it's the need to be pro-life. Blitzer butts in with the question whether he could support Giuliani. He says he will support his party's nominee.

UPDATE #13. A question about campaign advertisements in the Spanish language. Is it somehow inconsistent with a tough immigration position? Tancredo thinks it's absolutely wrong... and he's all passionate about it. A question about how each candidate is different from Bush. McCain: "Spending, spending, spending.... We've got to stop the earmarking." Giuliani: Accountability. Measure success, the way he did in New York. Romney says: "It's going from small bore to large bore." Everyone still tuned in now makes a wisecrack about how he's a large bore. Either that or they're all: What's with the null set and the small bore/large bore? He says weird things! Brownback is going to end deaths by cancer. (Yeah, that horrible Bush with his cancer death!) Hmmm... Duncan Hunter. This is the first time I'm noticing him. But I didn't notice what he said.

Now, we get a question of what it means to be an American. Tancredo makes it into another immigration question. He uses the phrase "enough is enough," and I'm thinking, yeah, enough with the immigration questions tonight. Another question about what Republicans need to do to win. I'm about to burn out. This 2-hour format is a pain. But my mood is lifted a bit when Giuliani says: "Ma'am, the way to do it is to nominate me."

Ah! The end at last! Am I the only one still watching?

Simulblogging the Republican Debate.

1. Yes, I'll do it. And I'll do it without TiVo assistance. Going TiVo-less is not just to make me completely spontaneous. I don't want to get bogged down in it. Once I start pausing, I start feeling responsible for everything. But there will be a transcript later for that. And, dammit, I want the TiVo for "Survivor"!

2. I didn't realize there was a debate today until someone asked me this morning if I was going to watch it. Oh, no. I guess I am. But how many candidates? 8 for the Democrats was pretty annoying, though the 8th guy -- Gravel -- did provide some comic relief. I have to listen to 10 Republicans? 10! Who the hell are they? 10? Let's see there's Giuliani and McCain... uh.... and Tommy Thompson but not Fred Thompson... conversation about whether Tommy gets any boost in popularity by having the same name as the strangely longed-for non-candidate Fred... so, come on, you only got 3. There's 10! Where's my coffee? I can't believe you don't even remember Romney. Oh, yeah, Romney. How could I forget? Who else? A Senator from Kansas? A Senator from Kansas, really? Not Dole... Brownback! Oh, he's from Kansas. How perfectly boring. Huckabee. Oh, yeah, Huckabee. He used to be fat. Yikes, that's still only 6! Who are the other 4? And I'm committing to listening to them? Ron Paul. He might be amusing. Who else? I look it up: Jim Gilmore, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo. Oh, the pain.

3. The Reagan Library set is glossy, what with the reflection on the underside of Air Force One, suspended over the heads of the audience. So are you pouring a big glass of wine and planning to take a sip whenever anyone says "Reagan" and drain the glass if anyone says "I knew Ronald Reagan, and you're no blah blah blah"? Nancy Reagan is there, sitting with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The voiceover guys are gushing about how "regal" the setting is. Chris Matthews gives a snazzy introduction, brimming with enthusiasm for Reagan. Reagan Reagan Reagan. Agghh. Where's my wine glass?

4. Ooh, it's closed book. No notes allowed. The first question is about optimism (like Reagan's) and pessimism (shown in the current polls). Giuliani has one minute, and he leverages in statements about immigration, health care, and the war on terror. McCain is next. He stammers a bit but sounds very strong -- and angry at the congressional Democrats for cheering surrender in Iraq. Tommy Thompson looks awful, but he lays out a point-by-point political solution for Iraq. Mitt Romney looks great.

5. They're all asked if they'd amend the Constitution to let Arnold Schwarzenegger run for President. Nearly all of them say no. Right to his face. Take that. Now, we're getting some questions submitted and voted on through Politico.com. That's a nice touch. What does Romney dislike most about America? He just acts like the question is: What do you love about America?

6. Values! In other words: abortion. Okay to "repeal" Roe v. Wade? All must answer. All say yes, with different levels of passion. Giuliani says it's okay to "repeal" it, but it would also be okay for a "strict constructionist" judge to uphold it based on stare decisis. Romney is confronted about his change of mind on abortion rights, and he clearly says he changed his mind. Wasn't that purely political? He denies it and ties his change of mind to thinking about cloning. I don't believe that.

7. McCain: "I know there's good and evil in the world. I've seen it."

8. Can a business fire an employee because he's gay? Tommy: yes.

9. Romney is asked about religion, and he is speaking very well about it. Matthews keeps asking the question about whether religious faith has any relevance to the presidential race. The right answer here is rather obvious, and I think everyone on the stage knows what it is. A person's religious faith gives rise to values that matter in public life, but which religion it is doesn't matter and we shouldn't argue about that. It's really just a matter of saying that in a clear and inspiring way: America is great because of our religious tolerance, etc.

10. Halfway into this, I'd say the person making the most headway is Romney.

11. Romney takes a shot at the McCain-Feingold Act in the middle of an answer about abortion. He's referring to the effect of the Act on issues ads close to the election (something that is before the Court in the Wisconsin Right to Life case argued last week).

12. Stem cells. Tommy Thompson talks about the research going on at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. That appealed to me.

13. Wow! Romney on health care! I have no idea if his policy is good. I'll have to read about it. But his form of expression was great here.

14. Tax. It's very hard to compare tax policies on the fly. Thompson struck me with his idea of dealing with the AMT by giving people the option of a flat tax: you get whichever is lower. He brags about all the vetoing he did as governor of Wisconsin and acts like he could bring that vetoing style to the White House. But Wisconsin has an extremely strong veto power. You can't do that in the White House.

15. A yes-or-no question: Do you believe in evolution? It looks like 3 of them raised their hands on no, but I didn't quite catch who.

16. Gilmore is asked a question and I realize he's made no impression on me so far.

17. Brownback is too conservative for me, but I give him credit for speaking well. He's a good voice for his position, not that I want it to succeed. "This is a set of quality candidates" he says, when asked what he doesn't like about Giuliani. I like that he doesn't take a shot at Rudy. Clearly, the two men have very different positions. People can see that, and it's cool of Brownback to be magnanimous about it.

18. Giuliani seems natural and good-humored. I think he's showing what he is in an attractive way. A moment ago he was asked the sort of pop-quiz question that isn't at all about trying to find out what his policies are: explain the difference between Shiites and Sunnis. He does it exactly right. Later, Thompson gets a question like that: How many Americans have died in the Iraq war? I don't like this sort of smart-ass question, especially when only some of them get hit with one. The idea is to see if they'll screw up. There's nothing to be learned in a positive way. Let's just see if this guy is clueless.

19. Guy! They're all guys! It just hit me. They're all white too. Should be a question on that.

20. National ID card. McCain's all for it. Ron Paul lights on fire: ID cards are eeevvviiilllll.

21. Romney lights into Patrick Fitzgerald and the way he went after Scooter Libby. I like the way Romney is cool and controlled but gets passionate -- in a controlled way -- when it goes with his issue. Or do you think he's too slick? I think he's doing well. He's seems ready to play the role of candidate. Republicans ought to want to take advantage of that.

22. I confess to being moved to tears by Brownback talking about the sacredness of Terri Schiavo's life (even though I disagreed with what the Congress did). I'm impressed by the way this man believes what he believes and expresses this. But, of course, it would be a terrible mistake to make him the candidate.

23. Hey, Chris Matthews is doing a great job. He's keeping it lively, without seeming like he's lording his power over them. He's making it seem like fun, when it can't be fun. Nice going.

24. Closing statements. Jabbery details. Moving too fast. Okay. Time up. Stop already.

25. Giuliani uses his time to compliment the President, giving him credit for the lack of additional terrorist attacks after 9/11. He distinguishes himself in the group by going positive here.

26. In the after show hubbub, we see Romney getting into a photogenic encounter with Nancy Reagan.

27. The commentators. They're going to go on for another 90 minutes. Wow. Who will listen?

28. Glenn Reynolds has a good collection of links to other "live-blogging." I can't bring myself to use that term when I'm not there in the room. He includes a link to me, which is nice, and characterizes me as blogging "from her very own perspective." Well, yeah. What are other people doing?

Laugh about it, shout about it, when you've got to choose, every way you look at this you lose.

Ooh, I've still got the song "Mrs. Robinson" running through my head. It was playing on the radio as I drove off to work today. But now it's evening and I'm -- as Paul Simon wrote -- "going to the candidate's debate." Not going, really. Watching on TV. I said I'd "simulblog," but, truth be known, this is just a TiVo-blog, and I may just fast forward through some of the candidates. And I'm starting on delay. I don't want to deceive you, my friends. Let's start now.

FIRST ADDITION. Mike Gravel? The hell? I was trying to count up who the 8 were. I'd forgotten Dodd. Gravel... that's news to me. I didn't even know he was still alive!

We're told they will be limited to 60 second answers. Cool!

The first question is to Hillary Clinton. She's asked about Harry Reid's statement that the Iraq war is lost. Does she agree? She avoids answering, instead choosing to talk about how the Congress has voted to end the war and how "proud" she is of that. She refers to Reid as "Leader Reid." She sounds hoarse. It's entirely scripted. The 60 seconds expires, the question unanswered.

SECOND ADDITION. Biden is given the same question and he, like her, reels out a scripted, nonresponsive answer. Now Obama, in an indication that he's more of a serious candidate than Biden, is given a new question. He's quoted as saying the war in Iraq is "dumb" and asked to square that with the sacrifices of the troops. He expresses pride that he's always opposed the war. He talks about the importance of equipment. I'm struck by how quickly he speaks. He sounds different from the way he has sounded in his solo appearances.

Edwards is asked about his apology for voting for the war and a statement he made about the need for an honest leader who will admit mistakes: was he talking about Hillary? He says "no." So much for honesty! Edwards is fast off the mark with a lie. A lie about honesty. We need someone who will restore our trust, he says.

THIRD ADDITION. We go back to Clinton, because she was attacked (though Edwards tried to act like it wasn't an attack). She says she takes "responsibility" for her vote and that she would not have voted as she did if she knew what she knows now. The real question, she says -- correctly! -- is "what do we do now?" But then she runs Bush down for "stubbornly" refusing to accede to the "will of the American people," which makes me wish I could ask her whether she thinks the role of the President is to adopt the military strategy that the polls show the people preferring (which would be completely incompetent).

Kucinich says we shouldn't fund the war.

FOURTH ADDITION. Richardson is asked if he would fund the troops if he were in Congress. He says "no." The war is a "disaster." He would "withdraw all of our troops" by the end of the year. But he'd apply "intensive diplomacy" that would have the three religious factions working out their problems. He'd have a "security conference" that would include Iran and Syria. And he'd have other countries take over the reconstruction and security. Okaaaay. He's for magic. Great.

Chris Dodd talks fast. Gravel would "find another way." He'd "make it a felony to stay there," he says, sounding nutty.

FIFTH ADDITION. Obama is asked what "a mission complete status in Iraq" would mean. He avoids the question and sounds stressed and clipped in a way that is, again, different from the way he has sounded in his more controlled, individual appearances. He taps into some prepared tape loops about the "strain" on the military and sounds a little desperate. He's scowling. He says we're "one vote away, we are one signature away, or 16 votes away from ending this war." He avoids the question and consumes all his time. He really seems too green and unprepared for this.

Clinton is given time for "rebuttal"! But nothing was aimed at her. She must feel great. Everyone wants to know what she thinks, and Obama is not looking good. She doesn't answer the question either though. She repeats the idea that the President is intrasigent. Ho-hum.

SIXTH ADDITION. Obama is asked about a seemingly corrupt deal.

Edwards is asked about the haircuts. It was a mistake to pay for them out of campaign funds. He does a good job of saying that he lives a "blessed" life now, but "it's not where I come from." He tells a folksy anecdote about having to leave a restaurant when he was a child because his father couldn't afford the prices he saw on the menu. He's asked about hedge funds and how they could be "helping America." I don't think he answers.

Hillary is given a shot at the hedge fund question. She praises the market economy and the regulation of it. She segues into talk about New York and its manifold interests.

Richardson is asked about his statement that he's taking a long time to think about what to do about Gonzales "because he's Hispanic." "He came from nothing. I know the guy. Did it affect that he was Hispanic in what I said? Yeah, it did." People want "candor," not "blow-dried perfection."

SEVENTH ADDITION. Gravel sounds wacky. He's wasting our time. Or worse. Everyone who dies in Iraq is "dying in vain." He's passionate and angry about that.

Clinton is asked about the unfavorable opinion people have of her. She says it's that she's stuck to what she believes. Among other things: universal health care. America is ready for that.

EIGHTH ADDITION: Sorry for the delay getting through this. Life beckons! Okay... now they're going to talk about abortion. Blah, blah, blah... complexity. They all support the right to privacy but also try to show respect to those who care about the right to life. A few candidates are asked who their favorite Supreme Court Justice is. The official answer seems to be: Ginsburg.

The Virginia Tech question: what should government do. This leads only to talk of gun control. They're asked if they've owned guns. Those who have are: Gravel, Richardson, Biden, Dodd, and -- hey! -- Kucinich.

NINTH ADDITION. A question about the Confederate flag in South Carolina. No answer of significance. A question about what mistakes they will admit to. I'm getting bored and burnt out. There's still another half hour to go. Maybe I'll come back to this tomorrow. But I've had all I can take for one night. (This is the problem with TiVo, of course. I stop it to write something, and before you know it, 90 minutes expands into 4 hours!)