Lincoln's spinning in his grave

Yesterday when I answered her question about what I thought of the second presidential debate, a relative shot me the same look I reserve for only my most stupefyingly ignorant coworkers. Guess she didn't share my lack of enthusiasm. So it goes.

In celebration of their mutual embrace of mediocre performances, I've mixed up bullets from two different summaries of the debate, one a liveblog by Defective Yeti, the other FactCheck's after-action report:

• Obama said, “I favor nuclear power.” That’s a stronger statement than we've heard him make before. As recently as last December, he said, “I am not a nuclear energy proponent.”
• Aww rats. Obama and McCain just came out wearing their normal attire. After the "I've got a bracelet" / "oh yeah, well I also have a bracelet" exchange of the first debate, I was hoping they'd arrived encumbered by layers and layers, and would spend the whole debate stripping off articles of clothing and sharing the personal anecdotes associated with each. "This stocking cap was given to me by a grandmother who lost her retirement in the stock market", "well these cuff-links were given to me by an unaborted fetus" ...
• Words that will not escape Obama's lips tonight: "I agree with John."
• McCain says that fixing Social Security is not very hard, all we have to do is "sit down at the table" ZOMG WHY DIDNT ANYONE EVER THINK OF THAT BEFORE?!
• Both candidates oversimplified the causes of the financial crisis. McCain blamed it on Democrats who resisted tighter regulation of federal mortgage agencies. Obama blamed it on financial deregulation backed by Republicans. We find both are right, with plenty of blame left over for others, from home buyers to the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
• McCain namecheck tally: Leiberman: 3, Palin 0.
• For the record, here are all the issues that Obama does not think are "central": The next poet laureate, The redesign of the penny, Whether the toilet paper rolls in the whitehouse crappers will be "over" or "under"
• Before the third debate McCain should take a Sharpie and write the following on his hand: "DON'T FORGET: YOU SUCK AT JOKES".
• iObama: "We will nuke bin Laden from orbit, even if he's discovered in Tampa."
• McCain lamented that the U.S. was forced to “withdraw in humiliation” from Somalia in 1994, but he failed to note that he once proposed to cut off funding for troops to force a faster withdrawal.
• It's hard to keep track of all of McCain's heroes. So far he's mentioned Ronald Reagan, Teddy Roosevelt, and Gimli.
• McCain misstated his own health care plan and Obama’s in one sentence.
• Brokaw has pretty much given up. Unrelated: what's with the weird black rectangle behind these guys. Are individual cable channels photoshopping Cialis ads into that space or what?
• McCain: "We're not going to have another cold war ... with Russia." Oo, I wonder who it's going to be with, then? I'm gonna guess Chad.
• Yay, another "strategy vs. tactics" semantics fight! This is like hanging out with boardgame nerds.
• Obama said his health care plan would lower insurance premiums by up to $2,500 a year. Experts we’ve consulted see little evidence such savings would materialize.
• "Part of the challenge for the next commander-in-chief is to foresee the challenges that we'll face. That's why I'll establish a Department of Precrime."
• "Gamechanger", drink! But where the hell is "Maverick"? I should have done three or four dozen shots by now.