Now that I've spent all day bloviating about how this debate doesn't matter, it's time to watch the debate! Post your reactions here.

Mark Partridge, writing on the Diplomatic Courier's blog, says I'm too quick to dismiss the usefulness of presidential debates

For one thing, most voters have not been able to make it out to see the candidates stump. Lacking this first hand experience, any chance to see the two duel–be it using talking points or not–is worthwhile. I would wager that the few people who would scour speeches to learn about the candidates respective positions are in the minority and are political die-hards anyway. Voters want things presented to them, and this is one of the few times when they have a nice side-by-side comparison.

Secondly, the nervousness in the U.S.–and around the world, for that matter–is palpable. The first debates have focuses on foreign policy, as well as economic policy; but the situation is so fluid, and things are very different now. Both camps have presented brand-spanking new economic plans in the past few days, and this is the perfect time to explain them to the voters. The next president will be the one managing the fallout from this financial crisis, and giving these candidates a chance to enumerate their policies could serve to calm things–in a way that the lame duck George W. Bush has not been able to. People want to know what McCain and Obama what and how they will fix things–and they want to hear it from the horse’s mouth, if you will.

Of course. The candidates' economic policies are in flux and Americans want to know how their future president plans to get the country out of the mire. But they're not going to hear it tonight. This economic crisis is so massive and complex that even the most educated voters have a hard time understanding the factors involved. I would wager that Obama's surge in the polls since the market collapsed has a lot less to do with the appeal of his economic plans than the fact that there isn't an (R) next to his name.

How could Obama or McCain possibly explain how they plan to "fix" the economy within the strict time limits and artificial structure of these debates, except in the most superficial terms? Tonight we're going to hear a lot of soothing noises from both candidates about how they plan to create jobs, regulate the banking sector, and keep taxes on the middle class low. Then we're going to hear some out-of-context quotes and votes that explain why the other candidate helped get the country into this mess. Which candidate a voter believes will mostly be determined either by who they supported coming in or who gives a slicker presentation.

As Dan Rather put it, "These aren’t debates...They are a 'something,' but they aren’t debates."

Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

In Israel, a simple car ride through the northern city of Acre has sparked a national crisis. Tawfik Jamal, an Israeli Arab, was driving through a predominantly Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur -- a holiday where it is customary for Israeli Jews not to use their cars. Jamal's car was surrounded by an angry mob, who threw stones and lightly injured his son. Witnesses would later contend that Jamal was driving recklessly and playing loud music, which he denies.

As news of the attack spread, Arab residents responded by breaking the windows of Jewish shops and hurling rocks at their homes. Arab-Jewish clashes continued over the next three days as Jewish rioters responded, burning and looting the houses of Arab residents. Arab residents were further inflamed by the arrest of Jamal for "harming religious sentiment," an effort to appease Jewish sentiment.

While the violence has mostly died down, there are signs that radical movements will use the still raw emotions as justification for their own political ends. Both Syria and Hezbollah released statements condemning Israel for complicity in the rioting. More ominously, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine threatened to murder Knesset Member Avigdor Lieberman in retaliation for the rioting. The organization said that his fate will be similar to that of former Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, who the organization assassinated in 2001.

Let's hope cooler heads prevail.

Yup. That's Foreign Policy's January/February 2006 issue featuring Hugo "Boss" Chávez himself on the cover. The therapist in this scene obviously has excellent taste in office reading material, though he may want to renew his subscription.

For the record, we had nothing to do with this but we think it's great and hope the trend continues. A recent issue of FP would look great on Alec Baldwin's desk on 30 Rock or in House's waiting room. We weren't founded until 1970 so I guess Mad Men might be a stretch.

(Hat tip: Agent Zero)

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

While Sarah Silverman is doing her part to shake up the Jewish vote on behalf of Obama, it would appear that Rev. Jesse Jackson is doing his part to muck up the works.

During an interview with the New York Post during yesterday's World Policy Forum in Evian, France, Jackson said that an Obama administration would bring much-needed change to U.S. foreign policy, particularly in terms of the Middle East. The Post's Amir Taheri writes:

Jackson believes that, although 'Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades' remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House."

While Jackson was careful to clarify that he was just "a supporter" of Obama's and not an advisor in any official capacity (indeed, he recently threatened Obama with some very uncomfortable payback for "talking down to black people"), I'm guessing his comments induced a lot of hand-wringing at campaign headquarters.

If uncertain Jewish voters begin to associate Jackson's underlying sentiment -- that Zionism (ahem, Israel) has a deathly chokehold on U.S. policy -- as Obama's position, they're likely to give pause. It's my feeling that just as often as some confuse being Jewish with being a Zionist -- of course they're not the same thing -- the stretch on the other end runs the same short distance. Jackson's "support" has a much better chance of assuaging oh, Ahmadinejad, on an Obama presidency than your average on-the-fence U.S. Jewish voter.

Both campaigns have already responded. The Obama camp refutes Jackson's statements (calling attention to Obama's pro-Israel advisors) while the McCain camp takes advantage (hinting that Obama is a Hamas sympathizer).

The Jews have a response for such a blunder: oy vey. I'm sure Obama supporters are hoping that will be the extent of any backlash.

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

I found Politico's roundup of pundits offering CBS' Bob Schieffer advice for moderating the last presidential debate a little pointless, since I have a sneaking suspicion that no matter how good a moderator he is tonight, these same pundits are going to be disappointed. The "media elites," as Sarah Palin would say, are hungry for the candidates to make news at the debates and seem perpetually disappointed when they just hear the same talking points they've been reporting for months.

As I wrote near the end of the Democratic primary, the candidate's positions on nearly every conceivable issue are so well-refined and publicized at this point, that the only way to generate news at a debate is to go the George Stephanapolous route of asking pop quiz questions and emphasizing personal scandal. There's really no way for Schieffer to win. If he asks good substantive questions, the candidates will recite their talking points and the debate will be boring. If he presses them on "character" issues and personal attacks, he'll (rightly) be accused of descending into tabloidism.

So why have debates at all? What would we lose without them? If you've been paying attention to the race at all for the last three months, you're not going to hear anything new. If you're a low-information voter who's legitimately curious about how a candidate plans to tackle the economic crisis, I guarantee you won't learn anything much from the debates that can't be found in their stump speeches or campaign material. If you're just trying to decide whether to vote for the black guy who might be a terrorist or the old guy who talks about war a lot, well, you'd just have to make that decision on your own.

The celebrated game-changing moments from debate history -- Richard Nixon's five-o'clock shadow in 1960, Ronald Reagan's "youth and inexperience" quip from 1984, Al Gore's frustrated sighing in 2000 -- had more to do with body language and clever one-liners than qualifications for the presidency. When potential vice president Joe Biden is actually telling voters they should "turn the sound off" and just watch Obama and McCain's body language, we've obviously entered some bizarre new meta-political world.

The only people who benefit from debates are those same professional pundits who will get another chance in the post-debate analysis to prattle on about "themes" and "narratives" like a creepy combination of SportsCenter and a seminar on French post-structuralism. McCain might yet pull off an upset and "win" tonight's debate, but the idea that any undecided voters will actually base their votes for either candidate on these monotonous spectacles frankly baffles and terrifies me.

A must-read reassurance from Ben Bernanke on all things financial.

Janet Albrechsten: The dysfunctional family known as Europe seems reconciled. Or not.

A woman cometh to save Iceland's banks, writes The Financial Times.

Anthony Brink debunks former South African leader Thabo Mbeki's HIV/AIDS mythology.

Asahi Shimbun spells out Japan's reaction to North Korea's de-terror-listing.