If the debate was a draw, it was because both men did poorly.

For all the talk that McCain was ducking the debates to avoid having to talk about the economy, it doesn't seem he should have been worried. Obama sat there and let him go on and on about earmarks as if they actually mean something. Earmarks are simply items written into the budget which reserve X amount of dollars for a specific program. Even if congress were to abolish earmarks ENTIRELY, that money would still theoretically be up for grabs. Not once did Obama point out that if McCain really wants to reign in spending and balance the budget, his tax proposals would require him to make ACTUAL budget cuts. Big ones too, we're talking about a quarter of the federal budget. Not once did McCain give an answer as to where he's going to get this money. Obama didn't fair much better. "This is all Bush's fault!" doesn't quite cut it. Wall Street didn't force american consumers to borrow up to their fucking eyeballs, stop saving, and price themselves out of jobs.

The foriegn policy portion was equally pointless. Yes, when it comes to nuts n' bolts military decisions, McCain knows his shit. Yes, Iraq was a bone-headed move to begin with, and Obama said so from the get go. So McCain was right about salvaging the giant clusterfuck for which he was unapologetically partly responsible. Did either man actually come up with a picture of what the fucking endgame in Iraq is supposed to look like, what has to happen before we can pull the plug on the thing, or how close we are to making that happen? No.

What about Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, N. Korea, etc.? Apparently we can't have negotiations unless we're guaranteed ahead of time to get what we want out of the negotiations. Also, if these crazy fucking assholes drag their heels, break every agreement they make, or just tell us to go fuck ourselves, there's nothing we can really do about it. Awesome.