(I put "debating" in quote marks because these "debates" are not debates. I took the debate course in high school and I've been a judge at debate contests among law students. Those were debates.)
I promised not to watch the "debate" but the Cubs were losing and so were the Bulls, so I switched to the "debate" in hopes that I'd miss a dramatic comeback while I was gone. No such luck. Instead, I watched Sarah Palin give one of those performances that only a practiced politician can put on, which is to recite short speeches from memory while smiling constantly and giving the thousand-yard stare as if reading a script posted on the back wall of the auditorium. If a spontaneous, original thought came out of her mouth, I missed it.
George W. Bush has 108 days left in office but for all practical purposes he has left the building. The meltdown of banks, lenders and Wall Street forced him to come out into the sunlight to give a short rah-rah speech and then hustle back into the White House without taking any questions. He needn't have bothered. In fact, he could spend the next 108 days in the White House, watching movies and sending out for pizza, and nobody would notice or care.
That brings me back to the point I wanted to make, which is that the thought of Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from the Presidency gives me the heebie-jeebies. Baseball has been my escape hatch all summer. What I considered to be the grand rhetoric of the nominating conventions has become the irritating pestilence of the 15-second sound bite, which is all the average journalist knows how to deal with. I know who I'm going to vote for, but that's in November. Between now and then we have the glorious month of October, in which division playoffs, league playoffs, and the World Series will all be played. The Cubs will have to come from behind a two-game loss to stay in competition but the Rays are going to go all the way.
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