Democracy for Vancouver

Maybe that would calm him down a little bit.

John McCain can’t believe that Barack Obama could ever be his equal, much less his rival for the Oval Office.

What came through last night was McCain’s unerring sense of entitlement to the Presidency, and his being absolutely appalled at the, yes, audacity of Barack Obama thinking he could ever be even half the man that John McCain was when he was still wetting his diaper.

There were many examples of this, most prominently when McCain called Obama “That one,” and McCain’s many repetitions of “It’s not complicated. I can do this. I have a plan,” but without any specifics. “America needs a steady hand on the tiller, AND I AM THAT HAND.” (Did anyone else flash back to Dean Wormer in Animal House? “The time has come for someone to put his foot down. And that foot is me.”)

It was most obvious, though, in McCain’s stalking around the stage, and his breathlessness and oftentimes incoherence as he tried to iterate all of the many ways in which this job is already his, save for a few formalities. As Carl Wolfson said on our local Air America affiliate this morning, “He did everything but pee around his chair, marking his territory.”

Meanwhile, Obama remained genial and serious, and mainly on point except when answering some of McCain’s oft-repeated lies about tax increases and earmarks. While McCain looked like a desperate old magician with no tricks left up his sleeve, Obama looked calm and presidential. And won the debate.

As for Tom Brokaw: When did he become such a scared little man? And who sold him this bill of goods on Social Security hook, line and sinker? You would think a dedicated newsman such as himself would recognize that he will be long dead before Social Security begins to run into trouble - and any trouble it has is from the federal government’s general fund picking its pockets since Reagan and Tip O’Neil created the trust fund.

Mr. Brokaw, there is no need to cut Social Security benefits. If we were simply to do away with the cap that keeps good, wealthy citizens like yourself from paying the same rate as minimum-wage fry cooks and middle-class schmos like me, Social Security would be flush and solvent until Al Gore’s head in a jar is running the great and glorious One World Government.

And the fix for Medicare is just as simple: Universal, single-payer healthcare. Get everyone on the same plan and the young, healthy workers will balance out the old folks. As McCain says, “It’s not that complicated.”

All in all, the debate was a waste of time as we learned nothing new, except for the fact that a few more people saw Obama and McCain in sharp contrast, with Obama winning over the undecided voters 2-to-1.

26 days (and one more chance for John McCain’s head to explode) to go…