I really, really was not going to follow this debate. We don't even have a TV. But then I thought "OK, I'll listen on the radio. Just to the first few minutes."

Yeah, right.

After listening to 90 minutes of exchanges between an obviously intelligent, curteous, and three-dimensional person, and a clumsy, inarticulate, and apparently not-to-bright individual.

And the irritating thing is that it is going to be the clumsy one, the one that kept repeating the overly-simplistic and childish slogans over and over again, that is going to win.

You know what? It really is not an election between these two men. It is not a test of them. This is a test of this nation. Of the electorate of the United States of America. The people living here will be tested on November second. Like never before. The dust of these two towers have settled. There are no more excuses. The cold, hard truth of the situation is apparent. The alleged connections. The proposed threat. What needs be done. What must not happen.

And it saddens me immensely to say this, but I fear that the nation is about to fail that test. And the blame will not just sit with a single Texan anymore, but the nation that will have blessed his deeds.