I have been copping it from all angles of late from neo-con bloggers, probably because a few days back I dared point out how inept and unqualified GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin looks. And haven’t the piercing rebuttals been coming thick and fast. A ’stoopid conservative’ rushed to reveal the grammar error that never was. JF Beck, unhappy that I’d taken shots at his VPILF, was merciless in his deconstruction of my joke about John F. Kennedy reading Sweet Valley High (a chronological impossibility, says JF, so I must be dumber than Palin herself). He also pointed out the fallacy of my claim that one can have “empathy for the environment” - a fair criticism, one I hope JF extends to the “war on terror”, a phrase that appears in his blog numerous times.

The ever-boring Currency Lad picked up on JF’s final retort: my mention, in the context of Palin’s naivete, of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis. A paraphrasing of CL’s febrile historical revisionism runs something like this:

Kennedy didn’t solve the crisis you know and anyway he actually caused it and also did you know that he endangered the United States by putting Jupiter missiles into Turkey and hey, hey, hey he also tried to kill Castro with a poison milkshake and that’s, like, really bad, and did you also know that he took drugs, slept with lots of girls and his daddy got him into power and that his book Profiles of Courage was plagiarised and was only a best-seller because Joe Snr. bought all the copies and and and… <snip>

CL, who claims a PhD in ecclesiastical history, seems to have more problems with the secular stuff. In any case, my initial comment was about how Kennedy - himself a graduate of real History - handled having pointy Soviet nuclear thingies in his backyard, as compared to how a future President Palin might deal with such a problem. All eyes were on the VP debate earlier today for some insight into such a proposition.

Palin’s performance was jittery and sporadic but, on the whole, better than her woeful output from the Katie Couric fireside chat. She sounded stronger, if a little hackneyed and a lot rehearsed, when she described herself as a “Washington outsider”, a down-home type who knows the pains and perils of ordinary voters. On matters of foreign policy - Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel - she was helplessly outpointed against Biden, who has 35 years of experience in the Senate. The whole thing was at best a draw, at worst a win on points to Biden - but given Palin’s recent efforts, that’s probably better than many conservatives were expecting.

Still, the debate telecast will give JF Beck some good entertainment tonight. If only he had a cat to watch it with…

UPDATE

A kind reader has kindly directed me to Sarah Palin’s Facebook page, kinda.

Channel Nine’s resident lego-head, Ray Martin, is on Radio National Breakfast right now getting all righteous and sanctimonious about Nine’s free speech rights being infringed by the yanking of the TV debate feed. Apparently the Liberal Party’s actions threaten this country’s “democracy.” Wanker.

I’ve got no sympathy at all for his whinging; I do agree that in a perfect world Nine should be able to run the debate footage with whatever pathetic gimmick they want, but the simple fact is that Nine were offered the feed on the condition that they did not run the worm. They ran the worm. The feed was pulled. Sounds fair to me.

And while we’re talking about worms, for all the media’s crapping on about how the worm is a meaningless gimmick it hasn’t stopped supposedly quality broadsheets from splashing those meaningless numbers all over their (gimmicky pink) front page.

So here we go. I don’t know why I’m bothering to live-blog the 2007 election debate but…

7:31pm: Rules of engagement declared by some 16 year old guy from Sky News.

7:32pm: Rudd: Future, future, future.

7:34pm: Rudd: “Implement an education revolution.” Whatever that means.

7:31pm: Howard: “My fellow Australians.” I just spewed.

7:36pm: Howard: It’s all about Don Bradman, man.

7:37pm: Howard: Love growth.

7:41pm: McBec just proposed a drinking game where we sip whenever Krudd says “mining boom.”

7:45pm: Howard: “I have a fantastic team.” I think I just sprayed my dinner out of my nose. Brilliant.

7:47pm: Both leaders: I’m more economic conservative than you, bitch.

7:53pm: Howard trying to be all small government over tax cuts despite his government being the largest yet.

7:55pm: Rudd kicking arse. “Leveling” with Australian people that he cannot promise lower interest rates. Nice.

7:56pm: Liberal = good. Labor = evil. The election in six words according to Howard.

7:58pm: Did Howard actually say that he accepts responsibility for stuff rather than passing the buck to media, colleagues etc.? Surely I mis-heard.

8:04pm: Rudd: Productivity, education, broadband. You got that?

8:06pm: Rudd: “Howard during eleven long years.” That’s a focus group-tested term if ever I heard it.

8:07pm: First time Rudd addresses Howard directly. Brilliant! Howard: “That’s pathetic.”

8:11pm: Peter Costello reminded to follow the rules (shut up in the audience) set down by his own Party.

8:13pm: Text message from my Mum: JHo is p’ing me off

8:14pm: My response to Mum: Let’s vote the bastard out!

8:15pm: Mum’s reply: I’m there

8:17pm: Rudd: “Good to get a word in.” Damn straight. Been the Howard show for the past five minutes.

8:19pm: Text message from Mum: Lost track of how many times he has referred to what ‘he’ has done. Coalition 1 mention. Clearly it’s about the ‘team’.

8:23pm: Paul Kelly slams Rudd — quite reasonably — over lack of detail on climate change detail.

8:24pm: Howard: humans responsible for climate change but our response must not affect the human economy. There’s logic there, I’m sure.

8:25pm: Howard announces Climate Change Fund to subsidise low income earners in the purchase of cleaner energy.

8:27pm: Howard: We’re going to meet our Kyoto targets. Only because we’re reducing land clearing.

8:28pm: Text message from Mum: I think I must have misheard Rudd’s response on targets?

8:29pm: My response: No. There wasn’t one. Not a proper one.

8:30pm: Mum’s reply: Thank God — I thought I must’ve been having a senior moment.

8:35pm: Howard, no matter what, will not answer whether the threat of terrorism has increased or decreased since the Iraq invasion. Evading desperately and Rudd capitalises.

8:37pm: Text message from Mum: Terrorists overboard!

8:39pm: The way Rudd said “calibrate” and “SECDET” with his wonky mouth made shivers go up my spine.

8:43pm: Rudd just lied through his (wonky) teeth about “global opposition to the death penalty.” There was a big-arse but.

8:45pm: Howard: “I’m sorry but not sorry.”

8:48pm: Rudd: An apology is a bridge.

8:49pm: Howard blatantly dodged Rudd’s redundancy-under-WorkChoices question.

8:52pm: Rudd nicely slaps Howard down on his debating skillz.

8:54pm: Howard to Rudd: “I don’t care about you, bitch.”

8:55pm: Howard: The war in Iraq is all about image.

8:57pm: Rudd totally out-cooling Howard.

8:59pm: Rudd: “The best for the kids.” That’s right — Labor: Doin’ It For The Kidz.

9:00pm: Howard: “I’m an optimist, but it’s in the hands of the resources.” What?

9:01pm: Howard: “It’s all about the strong economy.”

9:02pm: Howard: Who cares about education revolution when all that matters is “reading, spelling and adding up.” Sounds like the bare freakin’ bones of education to me. Lowest common denominator.

9:03pm: The Editor and McBec’s score: Howard — 6; Rudd — 8.

9:04pm: The Editor’s mum’s score: Howard — 3.5; Rudd — 8.5.

And the hordes have spoken. Congratulations to Tommy on a 7 to 3 victory over The Editor. It could’ve been 8 to 3 but “fake name” stated that The Editor “sucks donkey penis” which, despite being a fairly damning criticism, is not technically a vote against me.

So well done to both CageFighters. I think Matt summed the whole thing up best when he said: “[Neither] argument was particularly persuasive, coherent, useful or convincing.” But at least we got to bag some people out and it gave us a handy excuse to procrastinate on the internet instead of doing things we really should’ve been doing.

Stay tuned for GrodsCageFight 2, readers. Negotiations are underway and it should hit your computer monitors within a fortnight.