Game time

Published October 9, 2004 12:48AM (EDT)

The Boston Red Sox just beat the Anaheim Angels with a dramatic 10th-inning home run, and it's an awfully good thing; it's hard to imagine how tonight's debate was going to start without it. The ball game had the intense attention of just about everyone in the media center at Washington University. Tim Russert and just about every other reporter here spent the better part of an hour glued to a TV, rooting hard for the Red Sox.

Kerry spokesman Mike McCurry tried to watch, too, but he kept getting interrupted by reporters anxious for a little pre-debate spin. McCurry's expectation-lowering line: After Bush's disastrous performance in the first debate, the media will declare Bush a winner as soon as he "utters a single coherent sentence," setting up a dramatic and decisive third debate in Arizona next week.

Stay tuned.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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