Remember the days leading up to the second presidential debate, at Belmont University? That debate was in town hall format, and we were told that John McCain was going to Own the Night, because he is a Town Hall Debatin' Genius who strides the Town Hall Earth like a Town Hall Colossus. What would Obama do, with all his inexperience, faced with the challenge of talking, while occasionally walking? Well, we all know what happened in Belmont: McCain wandered around the stage like a listless drunk on the foredeck of a garbage scow, and everyone cringed and complimented Obama for not subjecting McCain to the ten additional town halls that the Arizona Senator wanted, even if that was the reason McCain JUST HAD to go negative.
Anyway, according to MSNBC's Kelly O'Donnell, you need to forget all that! As it turns out, every single quotidian detail about tonight's debate could be a GAME-CHANGER for McCain tonight. And to the end, O'Donnell wants to remind us that McCain's real strength is sitting in chairs! And the media's spent so much time talking about how awesome McCain is in town halls, that they've plumb forgotten to talk about how awesome he is NOT in town halls.
O'DONNELL: I was able to talk to some of the people who are closely involved in the preparation. And last time we talked so much about the town hall format, and tonight we are going to see the two candidates seated at a table with Bob Schieffer. And what they're telling me now is that we focus so much on the supposed skills and advantages that a town hall might give John McCain, but they remind me today that John McCain has been a guest on the Sunday shows - Meet The Press, Face The Nation - almost more than anyone in Washington today. He holds the number two spot behind Bob Dole for most appearances on Meet The Press. So that kind of a format, the intimacy of sitting close to your opponent and the moderator, being seated, the body language involved there, that kind of a setting is something where they think that he is at home.
OH NOES! You mean to say John McCain is about to LET SLIP SOME MAD BOB DOLE SKILLZ UP IN THIS PIECE? Dag, y'all! I'm sure that Barack Obama will soon come to regret the day he agreed to sit at a table with a consummate Washington insider that's wasted a third of his life appearing on those dreadful Sunday morning babblefests.
[WATCH.]
PREVIOUSLY, on THE HUFFINGTON POST:
MSNBC's Kelly O'Donnell's Mindblowing Pronouncement