I’m not sure I need to watch tonight’s debate, because I already know how it’s going to play out:

SCHIEFFER:  Good evening, gentlemen.  You already know the rules, so let’s start with the questions.  Sen. Obama, the first question is for you:  Please describe for the American voters the way in which your economic plan is going to ensure that everyone will end up wealthy.

OBAMA:  Thank you, Bob.  Briefly:  wealth, blah, blah, blah, pie, blah, blah, blah, wealth, blah, blah, blah, pie, blah, blah, blah, fair, blah, blah, blah, hope, blah, change.

SCHIEFFER:  Sen. McCain, could you please discuss the details of your plan to cut taxes on oil companies?

McCAIN:  Thank you, Bob.  Before I get to my own plan, I’d like to discuss a point Sen. Obama made.  You see, he errs, when he….

SCHIEFFER:  Did you say “Ayers” Sen. McCain?  I’m sorry, but we’re out of time for your answer.  My next question is for you Sen. Obama.  Jesse Jackson recently said that “zionists” will lose their “clout” under an Obama administration.  Can you please comment on that statement.

OBAMA:  First, let me say that that is not the Jesse Jackson I knew.  Second, let me assure the American people that each of my advisors, past or present, whether Samantha Power, Robert Malley, Jeremiah Wright, George Soros, Zbigniew Bzrezinski, etc., are all (cough, cough), uh, stdfjd suerrureuf of Israel.

SCHIEFFER:  Excuse me, Sen. Obama.  Did you say that they are “staunch supporters of Israel?”

OBAMA:  Cough, cough.  Ahem.  Uh, uh, uh, why yes, Bob, I believe I did.  Yeah.  That’s the ticket.  Yeah, they’re all staunch supporters of Israel.

SCHIEFFER:  Sen. McCain, do you have a response?

McCAIN:  Bob, I don’t believe Sen. Obama is right about….

SCHIEFFER:  Uh, Sen. McCain, did you say “Wright?”  I’m sorry, but we’re out of time for your response.  Next question is for you Sen. McCain.  The Bush administration recently announced that it is removing North Korea from its list of “state sponsors of terrorism.” Can you please comment on that point, and be sure to describe all treaties with North Korea, and their outcome, since the end of active hostilities in the 1950s.

McCAIN:  I’m glad you asked that question, Bob.  As I often like to say, great oaks from little acorns grow….

SCHIEFFER:  Did you say “ACORN,” Sen. McCain?  I’m sorry, but we’re out of time for your response.

OBAMA:  Can I interrupt here for a minute, Bob?

SCHIEFFER:  Of course you can, Senator.

OBAMA:  I’d just like to say, with regard to North Korea, that blah, blah, small country, blah, blah, talk, blah, blah, no cowboy diplomacy, blah, blah, hope, blah, change, blah, blah pie, pie, pie.

SCHIEFFER:  Thank you, Senator.  That’s very insightful.  Sen. McCain, do you have anything to add to what Sen. Obama said?

McCAIN:  I simply can’t agree with Sen. Obama’s optimism regarding North Korea.  It’s one of the most brutal socialist regimes in the world, and unless that government opens itself up to a new party….

SCHIEFFER:  Sen. McCain, did you say “New Party?”  I’m sorry, sir, but we’re out of time for your response.  Next question for you, Sen. Obama:  Describe the way in which your health care plan will ensure that every person now living in America will have full, top flight health care.

OBAMA:  I’m glad you asked that, Bob.  Under my plan, every American will have full, top flight health care — for free, all of it paid for by the oil companies and other corporate parasites preying on the brave American taxpayer.  Indeed, within a few years, under my plan, our health care will improve so much that we’ll be the envy of other nations, and we’ll be able to hold our heads up with pride when comparing ourselves to such stellar universal health care systems as those found in Cuba, England, Germany, and the rest of the socialized, um, I mean civilized, world.

SCHIEFFER:  We’ve run out of time for a rebuttal there, Sen. McCain, but I’ll direct my next question to you.  You’ve said that you believe that the American economy, which has been in free-fall for the past two weeks, and which seems to be entering the next Great Depression, is fundamentally strong.  Please explain, with statistics, where you come by this notion.

McCAIN:  It’s true that right now we’re seeing a serious market downturn, and I have to say that I did predict this a few years ago, when I actively sought oversight of the way in which banks were being forced to hand out loans to unqualified lenders, all with the assurance that Fannie and Freddie would buy them, insure them (knowing that the taxpayers would bear any losses), and resell them.  But in answer to your question, I believe in the American economy, because I believe in Americans.  Just the other day, in Wichita, I got to speak to Maurice Seger and Linda Mezzo about….

SCHIEFFER:  I’m sorry, Sen. McCain.  Did you say Pfleger and Rezko?  I see from our clock that we have run out of time for this debate.  Thank you, gentlemen, for you participation.  It is always a privilege to be part of an effort that allows the American people to see their presidential candidates and hear what they have to say on the issues.

Macho Sauce Productions succinctly explains how we can tell that McCain did, in fact, win the debate:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Also, if you think the big guys — Hannity, Limbaugh, etc. — should start paying attention to this guy, you can sign a petition to make that point.

In 1992, I watched the three way Vice-Presidential debate, pitting Al Gore, Dan Quayle and last-minute Perot pick Admiral James B. Stockdale.  I saw 90 minutes during which Admiral Stockdale opened with two philosophical questions (“Who am I?  Why am I here?”) that made him look befuddled, not thoughtful, and then I watched him vanish in the melee that was the Gore-Quayle verbal fist-fight.

As a die-hard Clintonite, I resented his being there (although I’ve since realized that it was Perot’s and Stockdale’s presence on the ticket that enabled Clinton to win), and I was not inclined to take the man seriously.  I’m sorry now that I didn’t.  His son has written a lovely homage to him, one that explains the way in which he was brutally dragged into an alien political landscape and exposed to a great deal of public humiliation.  Mr. Stockdale also tells us precisely what kind of a man his father was, and how even this gauntlet didn’t touch his true core:

As everyone saw that evening, he was not a politician. He was a fighter-pilot ace, a Medal of Honor recipient, and a wonderful dad and human being. During his eight years as a POW, he slit his scalp and beat his face with a stool to prevent his captors from parading him in the streets for propaganda purposes. He gave starving men his food rations when he himself was starving. And at home, after his release in 1973, he was a respected leader, scholar and writer. He considered himself a philosopher.

He studied the Greeks — specifically Epictetus, an ancient slave and stoic who espoused the idea that individuals have free will and absolute autonomy over all matters within their control. He believed we must not wallow in self-pity when the chips are down, but rather recognize that we have the power to choose how to respond to everything.

My father adopted this philosophy while a graduate student at Stanford University in the early 1960s. So he never took pity on himself — ever. Not as a POW when he was tortured, forced to wear leg irons and to live in solitary confinement. And not after the debate. He knew he had put himself into that arena.

Mr. Stockdale wraps up his article with a great deal of sympathy of what has been and will be happening to Sarah Palin.

I don’t know about you, but I’m impressed as all get out by McCain’s decision to stop campaigning for a while and serve his country during what may be the most significant economic crisis since 1929:

Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me.

I am calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself. It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.

We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved. I am directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night’s debate until we have taken action to address this crisis.

Because of McCain’s consistent record of service to his country, this does not look like campaign grandstanding.  It looks like the real deal.

And because McCain has consistently sought to debate with Obama — and Obama has always run shy — it also doesn’t look as if McCain is running from the upcoming debate this Friday (which McCain has asked to have postponed).

Speaking of running from debates, this is one debate — the one where he’s standing opposite an empty podium — that Obama doesn’t want to miss.  He has refused McCain’s request that they set aside campaigning for a few days and get down to the business of helping this country through a major financial crisis.

Harry Reid’s statement supporting Obama was predictably stupid:  “Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid issued a statement saying the debate should go on because ‘we need leadership, not a campaign photo op.’”  If I understand this correctly, rolling up your sleeves and getting to work on an imminent crisis that needs to be addressed immediately is not leadership, it’s a photo op.  Appearing on a stage for a two hour debate that could just as easily be rescheduled to another day, is leadership, not a photo op.  Bizarro World, my dear readers, Bizarro World.

John McCain — Country First

Barack Obama — Obama First

John McCain — Country First

Barack Obama — Debates Only Without Opponents

John McCain — Country First

Barack Obama — Not Ready to Lead

(BTW, here’s James Taranto with some of the political manuvering that led up to McCain’s surprise move, which had it’s genesis in an Obama initiated effort to force McCain to sign off on a Democratic bill.  Not only did McCain refuse to do so, he also made Obama look incredibly selfish.)

UPDATE:  Confederate Yankee has a great suggestion for Friday’s debate, if Obama insists on going ahead with it.

I haven’t gotten up to speed yet this morning for blogging, but my fellow bloggers have, and they’ve already posted some good stuff.

The Anchoress has noticed that, as the debates draw near, the MSM is working diligently to prepare the American audience . . . by lowering expectations.  Obama, once hailed as the greatest American orator since Lincoln, is now being billed as uneven and inexperienced (which is really shocking, considering that his resume as a lawyer and a teacher is supposed to make him at least marginally adept at dealing with oral challenges, right?).

Then, per Confederate Yankee, we learn that there is no proof to back up the reprehensible charge that Alaska generally and Wasilla specifically, under Palin, charged women who had been raped with the price of the rape kits used on them.  One person made the charge to much press hullabaloo, and then vanished; myriad people have rebutted the charge, and the press has ignored them completely.  Hmmm.

In response to the charge that the NYT is one of his propagand arms, Obama fired back with the claim that the NYT has written 40 “probing” stories about him.  Laer examined Obama’s charge very carefully and found it wanting.