Tuesday’s presidential debate left me feeling nothing but awkward. Barack Obama sat half leaning in his chair, while his opponent shuffled toward whoever held the microphone like Neko the mouse-chasing screen saver kitten, except McCain flapped his arms like a penguin, and had about that much to say.

Actually, did either candidate say much? McCain repeated his incoherent assurances, and Obama’s tack seemed deliberately to be not to outshine McCain. Spectators would probably delight in watching a best man win, but it seems Obama’s strategy is not to clobber the Bush poster boy, because Americans can’t help themselves from feeling for the underdog. Especially if he’s the Last White Hope.

John McCain could fly a Navy jet through the IQ gap between the two candidates. But McCain’s flight record shows he couldn’t even navigate that without clipping a power line and leaving all of us in the dark. McCain is that unsuited for the job, any job except influence peddling and whoring in Rio. That’s not an exaggeration. He is that vacuous, that soulless, that traitorous, that cowardly, and that lacking in judgment. It does trouble me immensely that cohorts like Biden can’t help but temper their public criticism of McCain with reminders of how much they like him. It reminds me of Bush as drinking buddy.

With his record of failure in his every endeavor, school, flying, captivity, corruption, infidelity, war-mongering, belonging to the GOP, being tainted by Bush, where does John McCain find traction with the American populace?

How the hell is this contest anticipated to be close, except the issue of Americans resisting the idea of a black president?

Here’s an explanation getting passed around the web:

HOW RACISM WORKS:

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?

What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said ‘I do’ to?

What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard and Princeton?

What if Obama were a member of the Keating-5?

What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?