The Presidential Reporting Project

How to Truly Enjoy a Debate

You knew it was coming. It was all but inevitable.
Wonkette has just posted a Presidential Debate Drinking Game.

Political debates have long since sacrificed a lively exchange of ideas for rote recitation of platitudes, leaving astute viewers to read between the lines for what is implied or else drift off, eyes glazed, into slumberland.

So while we at the PRP are analyzing the deeper meanings of the debate with assorted experts and political junkies, we exhort all of you out there in the ether to experience it in that age-old American way: by drinking your way beyond the point of caring.

Among the many gems of the Wonkette post:

• Anyone tells that story about Bobby Kennedy turning up the thermostat before the Kennedy-Nixon debate: Take a sip of a hot toddy.
• Someone shows a clip of Al Gore sighing: Recount your chads.
• A Republican operative compares Kerry to a classical orator: Drink an ouzo-and-hemlock cocktail.
• Drink one sip if one candidate interrupts another candidate
• Drink two sips if Kerry brings up Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment
• Finish your glass if anyone attempts to speak Spanish to pander to Latinos

Posted by Matt Wheeland at September 28, 2004 08:12 PM