Apropos of nothing, here's a clip of Sarah Palin during last night's debate, calling Joe Biden "Senator O'Biden." A momentary crossing of synapses that caused her to mix him up with his younger, multiracial running mate? Or just a sly nod to America's Irish voters? Either way, it caused Joe to break into his Cheshire Cat smile, as he thought "This lady is none too bright. But I'd still like to make out with her." Click to relive this moment of oratorical glory.

Because journalists and people on TV have been focusing exclusively on Sarah Palin for more than a month now. The people familiar with Senator Joe Biden are the people already inclined to vote for him. The uninformed just-now-paying-attention "undecideds" who tuned in last night were introduced to this smart, reassuring guy. And the Obama campaign debate strategy is reassurance—don't worry, you don't need to vote for the old white guy, we do know what we're doing. It's brilliant and it worked as well as ever last night. (Also his FUCKING FAMILY DIED.) To sum up, we were right. (Also the best part of CNN's coverage last night was the ladies maxing out on approval for Biden in his opening statement until the shot switched to a view of his bald spot and terrible plugs, at which point support of undecided women plummeted.)

For much of tonight's debate, Sarah Palin avoided any spectacularly obvious stupidity and Joe Biden steered clear of any casually offensive statements. Then came "Say It Ain't So, Joe," an attempted cute catchphrase deployed by Palin that not only failed spectacularly but which was also followed by a cascade of other dumb attempts at adorability. The Republican vice presidential nominee then looked increasingly like the end of Tina Fey's most recent impression. She winked! For the second time in the night! She called her own joke "lame" and tried to laugh at it.

Want to stay crucial moments ahead of your neighbors watching the vice presidential debate on a network feed? Try the Times' website . Not only is the old-media stalwart streaming live video of tonight's Biden-Palin faceoff with a surprisingly smooth interface, but it's a good eight seconds ahead of the likes of CNN and MSNBC.

Post your elitist, "gotcha" commentary on the debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden below. Will either candidate defy expectations? Will Palin meet them in spectacularly mockable fashion? Will Joe Biden perform his legendary foot-in-mouth maneuver? We'll see! Gwen Ifill said the crowd in the debate hall has promised to remain "polite." Our commenters, of course, are bound by no such pledge. You'll probably want to view the thread with newest posts first. Or for a faster skim of the hottest topics, look at the most active discussions.

If we may respectfully disagree with everyone on Earth, Joe Biden will do fine. The expectations are so ridiculously low for Sarah Palin that smart people know any half-competent performance will be met with cheers and audible relief and the nation will love her again. But you know what? That's all meta-expectations gaming for Biden. It is now a truth universally acknowledged that Joe will be boorish and say a thousand stupid things and he'll be mean and condescending and no one will like him. But no one seems to remember that ol' gaffey Joe gets away with all of his thousands of gaffes not just because he's been around forever, but also because he seems like a nice guy! He's genial when he says 7/11s are full of Indians! He's friendly even when attacking John McCain! He was great and funny and succinct in primary debates! Sarah Palin will ramble and make no sense and spout talking points and platitudes and Joe Biden will be well-informed and maybe have a couple zingers and a couple crazy unfortunate misstatements and, like the first presidential debate, the punditry will say the Republican won and the viewers will decide which one they want to see on TV for the next four years and go with the Democrat. So calm down, liberals.

The inclusion of a woman on a major party's presidential ticket is unprecedented... for the Republicans. The Democrats did it back in 1984, when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferrarro for his suicide mission against Reagan. Ferraro was considered risky due to her inexperience, but her selection and her brash, confident campaigning bumped Mondale way up in the polls. The VP debate that year pit George H. W. Bush, who'd been in Washington for years in various positions of authority and who was considered something of a foreign policy expert, against Ferraro, who'd only been in the House of Representatives for a couple years. The result? See for yourself in the clip above, in which Ferraro fights back against condescension from Vice President Bush. Think of it as a preview of tonight's Biden/Palin debate, except for the fact that Ferraro is smart and can speak English.

For American presidential campaigns, the run-up to any televised debate is nothing so much as an exercise in managing expectations. Your opponent is fearsome and will probably crush you. Your own candidate will be lucky to form a single coherent sentence. Then, after the debate, you can spin a weak performance as a come-from-behind victory. In this little game of flackery, Sarah Palin could not be better positioned for tonight's face-off against Joe Biden. The Republican vice presidential nominee is up against a respected lion of the senate. Severe economic anxiety has put her ticket nine points behind in a new poll. The debate moderator has a big crush on Barack Obama. And, most importantly, a series of disastrous interviews with Charles Gibson and especially Katie Couric has made Palin look like an uninformed, inarticulate embarrassment. You can watch the complete lowlights in the attached video, including Palin's failure last night to name a single Supreme Court decision other than Roe vs. Wade. But keep in mind that the worse Palin looks now, the better she'll likely appear, to some key voters, tomorrow morning.

Twitter cofounder Biz Stone posted a chart showing the frequency of political keywords during Friday night's McCain/Obama debate. "Iraq" hit the highest rate of tweeting at a given moment during the event, followed by "tax" and then "Korean" after John McCain deemed North Korea "a huge gulag" that stunts its citizens' growth by three inches. But the trick to reading a chart like this is to look not at the height of the lines, but the surface area under them — that's how you measure the total number of tweets for that keyword. Iraq and taxes look to be the biggest. But Stone's chart shows Iran and Russia, not Koreans, are what everyone's tweeting about.

Thank god John McCain solved the financial crisis! Earlier today his campaign was downplaying the importance of a debate, once again arguing that the fact that Barack Obama refused to do 10 Town Halls with him meant that it was Obama's fault that McCain was ditching tonight's debate, and they even floated the idea that an all-Obama interview/town hall would be illegal. But in the end, they blinked. The debate is on. The "suspended" McCain campaign is un-suspended. McCain's bizarre political "Hail Mary" accomplished nothing, except for pissing off a late night talk show host and maybe helping derail a bipartisan political compromise. The McCain campaign statement, after the jump:

Did you cancel your debate party? Ha, ha, you are a nerd. But wait, un-cancel it! Or, uh, postpone it? Honestly we don't know what to tell you. Yesterday, John McCain "suspended" his "campaign" in order to fix the economy, and as part of that suspension he backed out of tomorrow's scheduled presidential debate. But Obama said the debate is still on! And Ole Miss (they are sponsoring the debate) also said they are going to still sponsor this debate! So... what? They can't reschedule. The TV networks don't want to move their fall schedules around to accommodate John McCain's crazy whims. Further, the event itself is the result of months of planning and involves massive security and making sure the moderator's free that night and getting all the cameras there on time and so on. So, no, they can't just decide to have this another night. Unless, of course, they reschedule the debate to take place the night of, say, the Vice Presidential debate! DON'T DENY US THAT TREAT, JOHN MCCAIN. If McCain Doesn't Show? If John McCain doesn't show up tomorrow, Obama will just have an interview, by himself, with Jim Lehrer, or he'll have a townhall, or both. So. Now that the House and Senate have reached an accord on the historic bailout agreement, McCain is going to maybe have to make a decision of some kind, regarding this debate, lest he look like even more of a fool (seriously, no one but Bill Clinton thinks he looks like anything but a fool). Some people say McCain will probably show up to the debate now, but the man is stubborn and petty (which is why he did this in the first place!). And right now, he's not blinking (they NEVER BLINK at ANYTHING). "There's no deal until there's a deal. We're optimistic but we want to get this thing done," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said. Of course, there sorta is a deal, now. But maybe it's not a deal McCain likes! McCain Will Probably Cave So McCain will probably show up tomorrow, to debate Obama. Because if he doesn't it's free airtime for Obama alone. He's painted himself into the stupidest corner ever! Because this plan he had nothing to do with crafting might work, in which case he looks like a grandstanding idiot, or else it will fail (maybe because of Republicans!) and nothing will get done and he'll show up to the debate regardless and he'll look like a grandstanding idiot. Then Sarah Palin will accidentally answer a question again and America will cringe and weep. (Because we are a nation of whingers.)

Ok, so this is sleazy, right? Barack Obama and John McCain were on the phone today trying to put together a genuinely non-partisan joint statement on the economy and the necessity of some sort of "package" to fix this mess we're in. Obama called McCain to suggest this at 8:30 this morning. NBC: "McCain called back six hours later and agreed to the idea of the statement, the Obama campaign said. McCain's statement was issued to the media a few minutes later." That is seriously a dick move! Hey: "'The debate is on,' a senior Obama campaign official told ABC News." So there's that. [Earlier]

John McCain has asked that this Friday's first presidential debate be postponed. He says it needs to be put off in order for him to "focus on the financial crisis," and he needs that time to fix this mess in his position as a Senator without any authority over any of it. Wtf. According to MSNBC, he's returning to Washington right now to personally solve this bailout thing. So—"country first," right? No time for debating, because Senator McCain—who is not on the Joint Economic Committee btw!—is asking Obama to join him in Washington. Jesus Christ. We're thinking this will very quickly come off as a "political stunt," and also make McCain look like a moron next time he trots out the "I lie about Obama because he wouldn't debate me 100 times from now until the election" line. But whatever, maybe it'll play well? For a day or two, anyway. But! What does Obama do? He calls it a cheap political ploy, hopefully, says he wants to debate right away. It is a sign, probably, that McCain's debate prep wasn't going well. It's a naked attempt to look on top of the news cycle and to insert himself into the economic debate, but canceling a debate won't instill confidence in anyone, will it? It seems desperate and reactive, especially in the face of bad polling for McCain. He's painting it as a post-partisan 9/11 thing, of course, and maybe that'll fly. Once again, we reiterate: there is nothing McCain can do about this. This is the stupidest and emptiest of political gestures. On the plus side, your Friday won't be wasted watching the debate! Update: Stuff we heard on the tv: The University of Mississippi (they're hosting the debate) say the debate is still going on as planned. Obama's camp is probably going to announce that they're going ahead with the debate soon.

This Friday marks the first presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. Debate previews are available pretty much everywhere (this one's fine) but honestly you should probably just watch this clip. It's from the 2004 Illinois Senate race, when Barack Obama was up against Maryland talk show host and certified insane genius Alan Keyes. Keyes is talking about gay adoption, and how it leads inexorably to incest. Nothing on Friday will be this entertaining. Oh, those debate preps they're doing? Obama is practicing against some ancient lawyer dude. This is maybe a mistake because the lawyer dude is probably way more well-spoken and, frankly, Obama-like in his answers than McCain will be, but whatever. McCain is debating Michael Steele, who is entirely unlike Barack Obama in every way except for one important thing: his time spent as a college professor. Ha ha ha, just kidding, it's because he's black. This is to teach John McCain not to seem quite as contemptuous of the black guy as he actually is. (Oh wait, update—McCain says now they won't use Steele! We're sure Alan Keyes is available! Do it!)

Pop quiz: are you moderating a presidential debate this fall? (Hint: are you old, white, and male?) You may be wondering what you're supposed to ask about! Sure, you could just ask them to talk about their positions on various issues, politely step back as they lay out policy proposals and debate the merits of said proposals, but then everyone will get bored. Your job is to stir shit up and force them both into making gaffes! That is how we decide what to talk about when we talk about campaigns. So. Because we dislike John McCain, personally, we will now explain how best to cause him to say or do something stupid during a debate. But don't worry, Republicans: we have a trick to trip up Obama too! Foreign Policy This one's a gimme, because John McCain doesn't know a goddamn thing about the rest of the world except that he wants to bomb it. There was the "Iraq/Pakistan border" thing, which could maybe be explained by him saying Iraq instead of Afghanistan, and the Czechoslovakia thing, which is pretty much just explained by him being lol old, and mistaking Sunnis with Shiites constantly and also thinking al-Qaeda was training in Iran, which can really only be explained by not giving a shit about minor details like who we're "fighting" besides Muslims in general. But now that his confusion has spread to Western Europe, his handlers should be worried. "John McCain doesn't know where Spain is" is basically a gift to the Democrats. Of course McCain can and will play off any debate question about his gaffes with a condescending "of course I know [blank]" statement, followed by a carefully coached recitation of lessons his handlers drilled into him, which defuses the issue, but it's a clear sign that he'll be tripped up by a different lame gotcha question about world leaders or geography. Do people actually care when a candidate doesn't know "trivia"? Not really, but if he plays further into the "confused old man" routine it'll hurt him way more than idiocy did Bush. The Economy Ask him just about anything about the current Wall Street crisis. Wait for weird disjointed pseudo-Democrat talk about regulation. Followup with any serious statement John McCain has made on the economy during his 100 years as an anti-regulation Republican. Watch him forced to either sell out his Capitalist base or deliver some decidedly not-populist rhetoric. Torture Ask him, Andrew Sullivan style, if he believes the CIA should be allowed to use "interrogation techniques" similar and in some cases worse than the torture inflicted on him by the North Vietnamese. Offer to demonstrate! (Though, of course, 24 viewers definitely think the CIA should be allowed to torture, and McCain is maybe helped by any mention of his POW years, but still, this shit was indefensible.) His Commercials, Campaign, and Surrogates Just ask him if he "stands by" or can defend almost any number of questionable things his campaign has done. As we saw on The View, he will not apologize, but he will look pissed off as he half-heartedly defends shit he used to hate. Which is way worse than apologizing would be. Bonus: How to Trip Up Barack Obama Ask a serious question about a complex and important issue. Make it one that requires Obama to speak extemporaneously. He'll answer, as he thinks through it, with something pretty reasonable, but complex, and he will say "Uh," and then McCain will say "shut up, Brainiac! Babies are tiny angels, why do you want to kill them?" THE END.

No plans for 9/11 day yet? Why not enjoy Barack Obama and John McCain at Columbia, one of those Elitist East Coast Ivy League Colleges of The Elite, where they will talk about civic duty for "ServiceNation, an organization that aims to increase public service participation." You know, "public service participation" like "community organizing," which, as we all know, is gay and elitist and not something seriously important like shooting wolves from airplanes. Anyway. We assume Obama will talk on behalf on public service and McCain will become confused and angry and speak against it. [CollegeOTR]

So hey, John McCain wants to hold "question time." Have you seen it? It's this thing they do in the UK where the Prime Minister is forced to actually take questions from Parliament, and answer them, and everyone's all abusive and mean and basically hilarious (illustrated in the attached clip). You know, McCain is good at speaking extemporaneously, so he could maybe pull this off. Except that he'd resort to very unPresidential insults and probably cursing when it got too heated (although—with this Senate?—it would not get heated). If it did work, and became tradition, we'd be thrilled! Oh, and the New York Post has another talking-related idea for saving America. Their opinion page today takes a nostalgic look at the legendary Lincoln/Douglas debates of 1858. And they bemoan the current state of political discourse and all that. The scheduled Obama/McCain debates, they lament, will not "even approach the unforgettable exchange of ideas that took place when Lincoln and Douglas shared the stage." The Post, arguing for reasoned, logical exchanges of ideas on The Important Topics!

The only news that actually happened during that unprecedented Saturday debate at the Saddleback Church is that John McCain spent the Obama-questioning portion of the evening in his bus instead of the "cone of silence." Then, when Andrea Mitchell mentioned this on TV the next morning, his campaign sent out one of those furious letters that NBC News head Steve Corpus keeps getting from various outraged candidates. Of course the story was confirmed by CNN and Rick Warren and Kit Seelye but no matter. The entire debate was already a pointless exercise with a predetermined winner, designed to help McCain appeal to the wary nut vote and make Obama look good just for showing up. What's funny about this "debate" before cartoonish Stuart Smalley-esque touchy-feely evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren and his million followers is that we know Obama's gone to church every week for years and the closest we've seen McCain to worshiping Yahweh is when that North Vietnamese prison guard he borrowed from the Solzhenitsyn anecdote scratched that cross in the sand. (Amusingly, this plagiarism was first noted by the right-wingers of Free Republic back when Conservatives hated McCain for being a MAVERICK.) But what matters, obviously, is not actual religion conviction-or even the facade of conviction that actual church-attendance lends-but kowtowing to morons. McCain, who first bit his tongue to appeal to his party's idiots about five years ago and has not yet let up on it since, won the debate by proudly announcing that he has the moral authority to recognize and personally wipe out evil in all its forms, while Obama foolishly went for the "humble and meek" vote. The pundits will probably call it his "complexity" problem but he actually erred in sounding like a real Christian. McCain, not even sure which denomination he is supposed to pretend to be, only had to assuage these politically exhausted evangelicals that, like Republican presidents before him, he would ban abortion forever and shut down the ACLU and make it a crime for newsreaders to not wear flag pins. And, while everyone rightly says Obama "lost" the debate, it also happened on a Saturday night during the damn Olympics, and as we already said, just showing up for the photo-op was more or less the entire point of his attendance. Hooray for Michael Phelps! Click to view

As you may have heard, a faux-grizzled Mississippi boy named Brett Favre has brought his quarterbacking services to the New York Jets, the sad and mopey second-tier football team in a second-tier football town. This is quite big news, since Favre is a revered football icon, an unpredictable head case, and could easily win a Super Bowl or have one of the worst seasons in professional football history. Favre's arrival has created a frenzy amongst the bloodthirsty NYC sports media. Which has itself created a separate frenzy of analysis about why this particular segment of the media is such a schizophrenic mob. All of which has circled back into a scrum of grown men fighting over this simple question: Is New York City the pinnacle of sports media; or the most hellacious sports reporting town in America? New York City boasts a tabloid-led sports media machine that is unrivaled anywhere in America. But to outside observers, this can seem like the worst possible setup. Here's what Gregg Doyle, a columnist for CBS Sportsline, had to say on Howard Kurtz's CNN show yesterday:

John McWhorter—Bill Buckley-esque NY Sun columnist and bizarre racial thinker—has taken his bizarre racial thinking act over to the New York Times for a day, presumably because conservative black academic columnists are hard to come by in New York City on a holiday weekend. In a video debate on the Times' website, McWhorter advances the novel theory that Barack Obama doesn't have to worry about racism; just his race. Here's an example of a statement that he says is not racist: "I won't vote for a black person because he's a radical type and would bring in Farrakhan." And hey, how come black people can hang around each other and it's okay, but white people can't? It's because "white people aren't allowed to be diverse." Okay! The other guy is, frankly, no match for McWhorter's secret redefinitions of words that negate their own meaning. The baffling debate, after the jump.