Presidential impressions

I've had some fun watching the debates over the past week. I was mostly watching them for entertainment value, as I had made up my mind months ago. I was really impressed with the ability of all four candidates to avoid questions that they didn't want to answer and to consistently tell lies and half-truths.

After the McCain-Obama debate, I read through the bipartisan website factcheck.org and learned that, not too surprisingly, many of the statements by both candidates were "simply not true". What surprised me, though, was that Palin and Biden repeated the same lies and half-truths one week later. You'd think that they'd do their own fact checking.

I wonder if we'll every have high-ranking politicians that are completely honest and unwilling to fabricate stories to get elected. What I find really amazing about politics is that politicians can spend an hour and half arguing with and making up lies about each other, and then afterwards shake hands and congratulate each other for doing a good job. That must be such a weird work environment.

Other things I learned from the debates:
1. McCain knows a lot of people from small towns around the world.
2. McCain isn't a very good listener.
3. Obama is naive and just doesn't get it (if McCain says it enough times, it must be true).
4. Obama has always been on the correct side of arguments (if he says it enough times, it must be true).
5. Palin sounds like a MinnesOHtan. I was going to write an entry about it, but the Minneapolis Star Tribune already beat me to it.
6. Biden talks a little bit like Garrison Keillor, but more quickly. I think he'd be a good story teller, and I bet he could fill in for Garrison Keillor on the Prairie Home Companion if he ever needed a week off.