H-E-double hockey sticks

The debate! But, like 60 years ago. Also, 7 other things worth your time.

Did you watch the vice-presidential debate last night? I had it on in the background while writing this.

What the heck could I possibly say — except that given all the interruptions and over-talking in both debates so far, I’d like to suggest that we recruit a federal judge as a moderator. Somebody with a gavel and an attitude.

So, instead let’s talk about another debate. We were visiting my parents recently, and my dad mentioned he’d watched part of one of the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debates on C-SPAN3.

Long time ago, right? Even people who weren’t born for many years afterward “remember” that JFK supposedly won if you watched on TV, but Nixon won if you listened to the radio.

However nobody seems to “remember” that there were actually four debates that year.

The debate my dad caught a bit of recently was actually the third session. Honestly, it was very 2020 in one sense, in that it was basically a Zoom debate—with Nixon in a studio in Los Angeles, while Kennedy was in New York.