The debates last night were like watching paint dry but for the presence of Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska. Of course he doesn’t stand a snow-ball’s chance in hell of becoming the next President, but he should; anyone who’s endured the last years not locked in a dungeon incommunicado who’s not as indignant, outraged, fed-up, and outright angry as Gravel is, is actually part of our problem.

It’s been said by more than one pundit, that Gravel is the “Zell Miller of the left”. I can’t really say I disagree with that observation, but it is missing a crucial qualifier: Zell Miller was wrong about virtually everything, and Mike Gravel is absolutely right about virtually everything. That’s kind of important. At least to me.

Gravel represents everything good in an American perspective post-9/11 Bush crime spree; he’s not crying –like Dick Durbin actually did when he apologized for rightly comparing the GOP to Brown Shirts-. He’s probably barely self-aware, so great is his passion for our reality long ago lost to a malignant media corporatocracy and those who’ve been successfully hypnotized en-mass by it.

I was hoping Barack Obama would impress me. I like the idea of the first black President. I like the idea because I like the idea of a bunch of racist, war-mongering redneck knuckle-draggers from red states, being as angry and afraid of their own government as we have been for the last 6 years. But Barak, contrary to Chris Matthew’s obvious attempt to promote his candidacy out of Hillary contempt, didn’t cut it in my book. He came off as “thinking out loud” and searching for answers he should have had. I feel your pain Chris Matthews; Hillary needs to be stopped. She is the one sure fire chance for putting a Republican back in the White House. I hate her too. But is there REALLY going to be a dime’s worth of difference between any of the so-called “top tier” candidates if elected? I don’t think so.

Joe Biden is full of shit. He’s arrogant. He’s got verbal diarrhea. He’s not remotely honest. But for some reason I can’t comprehend, I can’t help but like the guy. He reminds me of some of those used car and appliance salesman from the 70’s who created spectacles while saying “I guarantee it!”. As bullshit artists go, the man has real skills.

Kucinich probably disappointed me more than any other candidate. That’s because given his courage and willingness to file articles of impeachment against the biggest traitor and war criminal of the century, he came off like an aging hippy too tired to be angry. His utopian vision as stated would have done him in immediately had he by chance been a front runner. He never will be.

The best line of the night? “The only thing worse than soldiers dying in vain, is more soldiers dying in vain”.

I don’t know about you, but I found myself saying to myself that if there was ever a God who intervened on behalf of nations, Mike Gravel would be leading this one. He was actually the only “sane” person on the stage.