Ten things I learned about John McCain from the third 2008 presidential debate

[rfunk]

Of the three presidential debates this fall, the third one was definitely the most entertaining, though I'm not sure how enlightening it was. I did learn some things though, at least about John McCain....

1. He hasn't updated his talking points about Democrats and taxes since the Reagan administration, without paying attention to Obama's plan to lower almost everyone's taxes. (And if you make less than $111,646/year Obama will lower your taxes more than McCain will!)
2. He really really likes to talk about Joe The Plumber -- and no wonder, since Joe's a registered Republican, hasn't paid his Ohio taxes, and apparently his dad is a major Republican contributor whose father-in-law is McCain's old buddy Charles Keating. (Not to mention that Joe's taxes, both current and future, would go down, not up, under Obama's plan.)
3. He's hurt more by John Lewis condemning the scary racist tone of recent McCain/Palin rallies than by the scary racist tone of those rallies. In fact he's proud of them. Oh, and he's quite hurt by some anti-McCain t-shirts, though he didn't mention what they say.
4. He seems to think that Sarah Palin's infant son has autism, rather than Down's Syndrome, and that a few months with that child makes her the premier expert on autism and special-needs families. (Or maybe it's about her nephew with autism, but hey, my nephew has autism too but that hasn't made me an expert on it.)
5. He thinks that caring about the safety of nuclear power is only for "extreme environmentalists". (Nevada might have something to say about that. By the way, back in 2002 at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant not far from Joe The Plumber's home, a hole was discovered in the reactor, threatening nuclear disaster.)
6. He thinks Obama's health plan is like those of Canada and England -- and that that's a bad thing.
7. He thinks Obama voted against confirming Justice Breyer, even though that vote was a decade before Obama was in the Senate, and Obama almost certainly would have voted for him. (I guess McCain forgot Justice Alito's name.)
8. He thinks that allowing a pregnant woman to make a decision based on her "health" (his quotes) is an extreme position.
9. He thinks it's a good idea to put veterans fresh out of the military into classrooms as teachers without bothering with the examinations and certifications that other teachers must pass.
10. He loves to stick out his tongue.
    
    

Forgot one!
11. He blinks secret messages to his followers, presumably in some variant of Morse code.

This guy scares me more than ever. Luckily he's unlikely to win -- as long as everyone votes and, when possible, contributes! (And even then, there could be trouble.)

Full debate transcript here.
Full videos here (in 17 parts).