The relative handful of viewers who watched the debate on C-SPAN, which routinely features a split screen throughout the proceedings, were treated to a 90-minute catalog of expressive tics on McCain’s part worthy of the Three Stooges’ commander-in-chief, Moe Howard. During most of the interludes when Obama was speaking, McCain looked like a man being alternately tickled with a feather and poked in the leg with a salad fork by an Obama-friendly midget lurking under the table, or a man seized by some new, nonverbal form of Tourette’s Syndrome.

Or perhaps McCain always seems this bored and distracted when other people are talking. But it was something to behold, and the McCain campaign is lucky that not very many people beheld it.

Here, for the record, is the whole thing as seen on C-SPAN’s split screen. It’s really worth clicking into a clip or two to watch. Time permitting, Paul Schmelzer will post a mash-up of the many faces of McCain later on.

Part I


Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

Part IX

Other theories, of course, might suffice. Here, for example, is Sean Quinn from the indispensable FiveThirtyEight, quoting the work of a former FBI agent who has apparently joined the Can’t Make this Stuff Up club by writing a book about poker based on his work as an interrogator:

Tongue-jutting behavior is a gesture used by people who think they have gotten away with something or are “caught” doing something. I have seen this behavior in flea markets both in the United States and in Russia, among street vendors in Lower Manhattan, at poker tables in Las Vegas, and in business meetings. In each case, the person made the gesture – tongue between the teeth without touching the lips – at the conclusion of some sort of a deal or as a final nonverbal statement. This behavior has several meanings – depending on specific situations – but is usually associated with one of these: I got caught (taking candy from a drawer), gleeful excitement (look at what I just did, Mom), I got away with something (and I didn’t get caught), I did something foolish, or I am naughty.

Behold the moderately disturbing compilation video:

America, as you prepare to watch this fantastically bizarre coupling of contenders on Thursday, I submit to you yet another study in contrasts–and perhaps the most striking yet.

In late-August of 1999 Joe Biden, acting in his capacity as ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was in Kosovo making headlines with a blunt warning to the Kosovo Liberation Army: disarm under the terms of a NATO agreement or lose the support of the U.S. Congress “overnight.” Back at home, he was fighting to keep Bill Clinton’s nuclear test ban treaty.

Sarah Palin was also making headlines in late-August of 1999–with tears in her eyes at a similarly exotic and distant local: the Wasilla Wal-Mart.

The headline from the Anchorage Daily News was “Wal-Mart rings up wedding; working couple walk down retail aisle after tying the knot in Wasilla store.”

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

He worked in the pets department. She was a cashier. A romance blossomed. And when it came time to say “I do,” they chose — where else? — an aisle next to menswear.

Jake McCowen and Rosalyn Ryan exchanged vows last week at the place where they met, work and fell in love: the Wasilla Wal-Mart.

A crowd of 200, including passengers from a tour bus and several dozen curious shoppers, watched the two employees tie the knot in an afternoon ceremony officiated by Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin.

“It was so sweet,” said Palin, who fought back tears during the nuptials. “It was so Wasilla.”

Thursday ought to be interesting. There is no reason a politician couldn’t go from weeping at a Wal-Mart wedding to emerging victorious from a vice presidential debate in the span of nearly a decade. Why not? After all, who knows what she’s learned in her study of foreign policy and other issues of national import over the years. One gets the impression, however, that maybe she’s only just begun…