...because I won't be watching tonight's debate. I could -- I'm at home, and there's a TV about 100 feet away from me, playing the Nets-Celtics pre-season game -- but I won't. Reasons are below the socialist tangerine beignet.
It's not because I'm nervous about President Obama's performance. I think he'll do well, because if you remember from '08, it was the Town Hall where he got the upper hand on Grampy Insane. This is also a foreign-policy debate, and Mittens can go on about Libya all he wants, but foreign policy is what he does worst, and what Obama has done best.
It's not because I think me watching will "jinx the debate." This is a debate, not a World Series game, and I think different superstitions apply.
It's not because I don't want anyone to change my mind about who I support. Like everyone on this blog, I know who I support, and have for some time. Besides, I've already voted, so it's a little late to go platform-shopping.
It's not even because I think Candy Crowley will get her Inner Martha Raddatz on (or, more likely, try to "show" Raddatz how a "real" moderator" works the paint) and hijack the debate by trying to "inject journalism" -- i.e. Villager "wisdom" -- into the process. We know it's going to happen, and I hope Obama is ready to take the false equivalency and say "I call bullshit" as quickly as he should when Mittens gets his usual act going.
But that last sentence contains the reason why I'm not watching:
I simply can't take Mitt Romney any more.
I can't take the lying. I can't take the entitlement. I can't take the smirk that makes Dubya's crooked smile seem genuine. (Just sent an LTE to my local fishwrap lambasting Kathleen Parker's "critique" of Biden's performance against rAYN. I'll post a link if they print it.) I can't take that this miserable piece of detritus has spent most of his life destroying other lives in the name of profit -- and we're not only supposed to not ask questions about it (or about his tax plan, or his jobs plan, or his own taxes), we're supposed to celebrate it!
By rights, Mitt Romney should be chased by angry mobs carrying pitchforks, torches, feathers, and a hell of a lot of boiling tar. Instead, he's three weeks from (maybe) becoming our 45th president... and there are people who will vote for him regardless of the things I list above because he'll be getting rid of the scary black man who has been spending the last four years acting like a moderate so we'll get complacent, and THEN call in the UN and the black helicopters and the gun control and "teh gay" and make us all emasculated, man-scaped slaves to the European Union (or some such).
So that's why I'm not watching, and why I'm thanking the livebloggers and the commenters. Because while I'm not going to watch the game, I have no problem with reading really good play-by-play.
Sic 'em, President Obama!