Hear today’s episode of Radio or Not by clicking here (runtime 22:48)

In this, the week when the fall tv season is beginning, the biggest reality show of all is more dramatic than we could have ever imagined! And one team is like the train wreck you can’t help but watch, but certainly don’t want to see win!

In this Amazing Race, we have the old guy, a 72 year old former POW in Vietnam, and his younger, much less experienced and not very worldly female friend who seems to be there as eye candy to take the focus off of his shortcomings.

The other team is the smart guy who, against all odds – half black/half white, raised by a single mom on food stamps who put himself through college and Harvard Law School (and became president of the Harvard Law Review) — is succeeding! His teammate is a wizend street fighter, who’ll do well on this race around the world as he’s the single best mind in the US Senate when it comes to foreign policy, but seems to be lost in the blinding coverage of the other team’s beauty queen.

I said it last week, and it was echoed this weekend by Michael Grunwald in Time Magazine… it’s McCain’s Theater of the Absurd. Honestly, if the goings on in this campaign were a movie, you wouldn’t believe it… And let’s extend that… not only this campaign, but the last 8 years.

Have Americans not learned anything from the Bush presidency? Do we really want to elect another President who’s lacking in the gray matter? Randi Rhodes yesterday said, “I want the President to be smarter than me!” Yes! Please!

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I want the guy in charge to at least posess the brain power to figure it out.

Thursday night is the VP debate. In one corner we have Joe Biden, a scrappy guy who sometimes speaks before he thinks. If this were a normal presidential race, that might be ok. But it’s not. It’s calculated by the Republicans, and you know that Sarah Palin was their choice in response to the choice of Joe Biden. She can disarm him because he might be afraid to go after the jugular of a girl.

If I can offer Biden one bit of advice, pretend she’s a guy with as little knowledge, experience, or right to be sharing that stage with him as she has and go for it.

Let’s talk for a moment about the events of the past week. W and Hank Paulson go to Congress and say we’ve got an economic crisis of epic magnitude. Something must be done.
John McCain, who’s already admitted that he’s lacking on the economic front, says he’s going to step in to save the day. He “suspends” his campaign, which is laughable enough on its own… but then does nothing of the sort. Yes, he pissed off David Letterman, but his scheduled appearance on The Late Show seems to be the only thing he canceled!

He said he would not participate in the first debate on Friday night unless there was a plan agreed to by Congress. That’s the political equivalent of admitting he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, I suppose.

He not only didn’t help the situation, but demanded a meeting at the White House so he could have a Photo Op while pretending to be doing something… a stunt which all who were truly working on coming up with a plan and solution said only was a three-hour waste of time and diversion, not to save the economic future of the country, but perhaps devised to save McCain’s campaign.

But wait… it gets even weirder! There was no plan by Friday, yet McCain backtracked and flip-flopped yet again, and decided to say “never mind” and participate in the debate. He actually did better than I expected, but he did show his nasty side as well as his inability to get through 90 minutes without falling back on his campaign slogans and lies.

In the midst of all of this, Sarah Palin, aka Caribou Barbie, has been sitting for interviews with Katie Couric, which have only confirmed that she has no business in this race. The kicker came Saturday night, when Tina Fey donned the glasses and did up the hairdo to transform into the ditz that is Sarah Palin, and just SPOKE THE SAME WORDS THAT PALIN DID when answering Couric’s questions. Ah yes, truth is stranger than fiction, and this is truly the most ridiculous of all the reality shows on TV this week.

I, for one, can’t wait for Thursday night’s must-see-tv. The Debate. Barbie is now apparently sequestered at Johnny Mac’s Sedona home (one of 9 he apparently owns), as the campaign, according to Karl Rove, tries to undo the prep they’ve already taught her?!?! Rove said yesterday that she does so much better when she’s just being herself, talking off the cuff, as she did when she accepted the nomination???

Well, today, there will be no action in Congress. It’s Rosh Hashonna… A decent pesach to you (I know that’s not the correct term, but it’s what it always sounded like to me… sorry, I’m a bad Jew)… But it is the Jewish New Year. Please let this year be better than the last eight…

Please post your comments on the new message board (link to your right…). And listen to today’s episode of Radio or Not here (runtime 22:48)