I have to come right out and say it:

I did not watch the debate.

Yes, that’s right.  I couldn’t stomach it.  I’ve gone right off this election.

I finally looked up the Couric-Palin interview on youtube today and made it through a whole 5 minutes before shutting it off (if you haven’t seen it, watch the part where Palin says we may be in for another Great Depression - scare tactics at their very best).  And I read a few breakdowns of the debate.  I may watch part of the VP debate (if it doesn’t get finally scrapped in favor of the Bristol-hockeyplayer wedding, that is), simply because everyone needs some soap opera in their life every now and again.

But on Friday, having made my choice with no possibility of a reversal, I couldn’t stand the thought of listening to two men try to figure out polite ways to be nasty to each for a couple hours.  The humiliation I feel for our country knowing the trite reasons people are going to use to choose our next leader is overwhelming – “McCain didn’t look Obama in the eye!” “Obama was smirking!”  I couldn’t imagine I would hear much more of substance than I already know about their views, and I knew there was nothing that either Obama could say to drive me away, or McCain to convince me to come on over.

By all accounts it was either a tie, or Obama ‘won.’  Looking at poll numbers it’s hard to say whether the first debate changed anything.  But then, I obviously don’t understand polls, or the American people, because I continue to be shocked that McCain’s corrupt, ignorant, power-hungry choice of a running-mate hasn’t hurt the poll numbers.

Side note – I was disappointed to hear that Obama favored going into Pakistan after terrorists.  Don’t continue the war on terror, please Senator.  If ever I’d like to see someone break a campaign promise, that would be it.  Humor the Right, tell them you’re gung-ho for going after terrorists (throw in something about WMDs too, that’ll string ‘em along), and then promptly proceed with a full troop withdrawal from every damn place we’ve got troops, the day you become Prez.

So now the debate is over.  And now we wait.  Wait to die.  Wait to live.  Wait for an absolution that will never…oh, whoops!  Sorry, that’s Titanic.  Though the part about absolution is probably right.  But here in America, we wait for the next episode in the farce that has overtaken our country.  Perhaps it will be the VP debate, or the next Obama/McCain matchup.  Perhaps it will be the wedding of two young people who accidentally got pregnant in a moment of passion that probably didn’t mean they wanted to dedicate their lives to each other, turned into a media frenzy in order to take the nation’s attention away from anything bordering on a real policy issue or the question of whether the governor of Alaska or her husband should be in jail.  Or something totally different and unforeseen.  I will try to get up the gumption to actually watch instead of turning away in shame.