I was debate watching last night with the rest of the Country and was heartened by Obama’s steadfastness, his humor and his unflinching responses to McCain’s outrageous and repeated accusations.

I watched the debate at the studios of Green 960, progressive talk radio in San Francisco, invited as a listener guest. After the debate, two of us went into the studio with veteran host Angie Coiro for an on-air discussion of the debate with callers. Joining us were California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres, and San Mateo Republican Party vice chair Deborah Wilder. It made for an interesting discussion, you can imagine.

Small plug here:

If you don’t already listen to Green 960, you are missing a great radio experience. Tune into 960 on the AM dial. Angie Coiro is “live and local” at 3 pm every day and I never miss her show. Check the website for other shows and news of the progressive community in the Bay Area. www.green960.com If you are outside the Bay Area, there are live podcasts and archives of most shows. Check it out!

Who won?

All the major networks except Fox found Obama to be the winner. McGrumpy made some points with his newfound aggressive style, but most agreed it was too little too late. Actually too much is more like it. My co listener guest Kim called it “Kitchen sink politics.” Obama never ducked the flying objects McCain kept tossing at him. He didn’t need to. McCain wore himself out to the point he was having trouble articulating, calling his running mate “a breash of freth air” at one point, but that might just be because he gets all hot and bothered thinking about her. (Did you catch the way his gaze kept sinking to her bottom when he first introduced her as his Veep pick? But maybe he was just falling asleep.)

It’s all about the Supreme Court:

For me the watershed moment was McCain’s declaration of a Culture War. No he didn’t say those words, but he did say we need a change of culture, and he was referring to the issue of choice. Saying Obama was allied with “pro-abortion extremists” because he would make an exception for the health of the woman in opposing late term abortions. (Yes, I was disappointed he opposed them, because they are always either for the health of the woman or because the fetus is so badly deformed it couldn’t survive in any meaningful way outside the womb. Hey, these are women who want to have babies. This is not a last minute change of heart or whimsy on their part, as the anti-choice crowd would have you think.)

McCain was flippant, insulting and grossly ignorant or worse, in his cavalierly dismissing the health of the woman as a consideration.

And Choice:

Make no mistake, under a McCain presidency the cause of choice would be set back if not downright overturned altogether if he gets to pick who sits on the Supreme Court. He says he would not make Roe v. Wade a litmus test, but it is clear he would. It ain’t over yet folks. Stay tuned. And if we win, the Reps are already planning a challenge based on “voter fraud,” about which they know plenty.

Dear Friend, Goodbye. A Satire

Dear Friend,

I won’t embarrass you by using your name, or myself by knowing it, so let me just call you “that one.”

I must say good bye and end our long friendship, that is acquaintance, since I have had my investigators look into your past and have found some pretty troubling information.

Like that time in kindergarten you whacked Suzy Shepard over the head and threatened to “kill you,” if she didn’t give back your favorite dolly she was pulling all the hair out of. Such violence cannot be tolerated.

Or that time in high school when you and your hooligan gang threw toilet paper all over the vice principal’s house on Halloween. Such a blatant lack of respect for authority is beyond the pale in these times of fear and terror.

Worst of all may be the well founded rumor which circulated in the sixties that your anti-Vietnam War sympathizing had actually turned into radical terrorism as you kicked the nice policeman in the shin, while he tightened the handcuffs around your wrists and lifted you oh so gently off the ground to toss you into the paddy wagon with the rest of your terrorist protesting buddies. Non-violent disobedience my tuckas!

And just being an anti-war sympathizer in this time when our brave troops are fighting the terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them here is something I can no longer overlook.

So I must tender my resignation to the Board of our Homeowners’ Association, although it pains me to do so, since we are so close to working out the landscaping for phase three, and I was so looking forward to overseeing the planting of my beloved semi-double laciniated pompom mums in the common area. But to keep an association with you at this time is to put into jeopardy my future political career as a Republican candidate for Sanitary Commissioner.

I am copying all my fellow Board members as well as the press, as it is my civic duty to let them know what kind of individual they have placed their trust in.

I am sorry I will not be able to attend the ill-advised wedding of our two daughters, as we had planned. Jessica is no longer speaking to me, her own mother, so you can see how far the seeds of your radical past have been sown.

Next time you want to serve on a board of directors, be sure not to omit the pertinent facts outlined in this letter from your resume, so that all may be forewarned and not learn the hard way, as I have,

Your former friend,

Upstanding Citizen and phase two condo neighbor