... And is Obama Batman? A little video fun ahead of today's final US presidential debate
The presidential debate season finally comes to an end tonight after 35 debates (and Helen and John complain about four or five!). It's said to be John McCain's last best hope to salvage the election, but to be frank, none of the previous 35 debates have re-written the scripts in any of the various campaigns. Obama said he would sit down with the leaders of Syria and Iran without pre-conditions, Clinton stumbled over drivers' licences for immigrants, and the Republicans lined up to praise Ronald Reagan. But there's little history to suggest that John McCain can use a debate to swing the polls back in his favour.
The tanking economy is Obama's friend, and with Wall St slumping again today McCain just can't seem to get a break.
To lighten the mood, here's a clip of an old political debate–Batman vs The Penguin–that has uncanny resemblances to the recent Obama-McCain debates. 'No mudslinging, but who is my opponent really and why is he hanging out with criminals...'. Uncanny.
Tip: Jane Young
Another thing that might interest you: Christopher Buckley, a columnist for the passionately right-wing US magazine National Review and the son of the magazine's founder, William F. Buckley, a leading conservative activist, has endorsed Barack Obama. As a result, he's been forced to resign his column in the magazine. He notes rather dryly that "conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity". It's really rather odd given how fervently the Republican base used to hate John McCain for being such a "maverick". His campaign finance reforms hampered the well-funded right-wing pressure groups that used to have much more sway on American political races, he's pro-immigration reform, he used to call televangelist Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance", and he was critical of Bush's tax cuts for the rich back in the day–that earned him their ire. Now he's their candidate, however, it seems no-one's allowed to say a bad word about him. As this piece in Salon says, "McCain has run for the presidency twice, as two completely different candidates".