Nation of trainwreck gawkers

Huge early ratings for Palin-Biden debate

Thursday's highly anticipated face-off between Alaska governor Sarah Palin and Delaware senator Joe Biden may be the most-watched debate in 16 years.

Last night's event totaled a 45.0 overnight meter-market household rating, according to Nielsen Media Research.

That's 42% higher than Friday's presidential debate between top-of-the-ticket contenders John McCain and Barack Obama, which scored a collective 31.6 rating among broadcast and cable networks.

It's also a stunning 60% higher than the 2004 debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. In fact, the early figure surpasses any presidential debate since 1992's second bout between Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and George Bush (which received a 46.3 rating).

I honestly don't know how to respond. Were there that many people sitting around going "She can't be as bad as i heard, I gotta watch this shit"? Were there that many people willing to share in the nations greatest televised session of awkward comedy since the season finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm? I must say, the drinking games for this debate were better. But 42% higher than the Presidential debate, highest rated debate since Bush/Clinton/Perot menage-a-hump? Dear sweet baby Jesus, we do like to gawk at a good car accident at the side of the road.

Now the question is, after the vague melange of cue card answers, does the McCain campaign implode in a fiery hellstorm of you betchas, dontchaknows, winks, poorly phrased attacks, misunderstanding of issues, and shout outs to the 3rd grade class Palin spent the week learning foreign policy from? Does the fact that Biden knew more about McCain policies than Palin and displayed no moose in the headlights look, finally drive an iceberg into Admiral McCain's Failship? Or do we get to spend the next few days pretending that meeting some arbitrarily low threshold of embarrassment and sentence structure is more important than knowledge of issues?

Just kidding, folksy repetition of obvious soundbites is the most important thing. Clearly. Sorry to get you all angried up.