Open up the Debates!

Tomorrow night brings the first presidential debate, and with it, new debate drinking games. Politico and Vanity Fair already have some suggestions, as do the proprietors of debatedrinking.com.

"I drink to make other people interesting," proclaimed George Jean Nathan, H.L. Mencken's literary partner in crime. That sentiment helps explain why self-medication has become almost essential to these exercises in American civic life.
So stock up on the hard stuff: The "zinger" shootout tomorrow in Denver promises to be the same old stale, stage-managed affair. That's the way the Demopublican duopoly wants it, and the Commission on Presidential Debates — the gatekeeper corporation set up by the two major parties in 1986 — makes sure the duopoly gets its way.
For tomorrow, the CPD has settled on the same fellow who moderated the first debate in 2008, PBS' Jim Lehrer. Lehrer inadvertently provided one interesting moment last time, when he asked the candidates: "Are you willing to acknowledge, both of you, that this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the country as president of the United States?"
That was a cringe-worthy way to describe a constitutional officer for a free republic, yet very few people cringed. Neither Sen. McCain nor Sen. Obama objected to the idea that it's the president's job to "rule the country."

Read more: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/open-debates