Memo to candidates: Yeah, yeah, we get it already

Small suggestion for the next debate.

Maybe Sens. John McCain, R-Thritis, and Barack Obama, D-Teeth, could simply agree to refrain from repeating a set of boilerplate talking-point assertions that have been made, heard, and beaten beyond recognition.

A few examples of stuff that we get, already:

• McCain has a record. It's a long record. For 35 years, he has spent "a significant amount of time" in every nation on Earth, personally getting to know every world leader or military official, "looking them in the eyes" and seeing stuff that, amazingly, always seems to back up one of his preconceptions.

• "JohnMcCainGeorgeBush" is a mythical, single entity responsible for global warming, the downfall of the economy, the price of gasoline, the blown-out knee of Tom Brady, and the settling of the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

• McCain has a bracelet. He wears it in honor of a fallen soldier. Speaking of it, he summons an instant, creepy, dreamy look that suggests dying in uniform is the highest calling of a young American. Obama? "I have a bracelet, too." Congratulations. First guy to an ankle bracelet loses.

• Obama, considered by neutral observers to be uncommonly intelligent, "just doesn't seem to understand" much of anything now that he's running for president.

• Both candidates agree we should fear loose nukes. But only Obama has a plan to contain "noose lukes."

• The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean. They don't call him "Tape Measure" McCain for nothing.

More peaks on the CNN Dope-O-Meter:

Let's Do the Time Warp Again: At midweek, McCain had "suspended" his campaign to fly to Washington, D.C., and help forge a deal to keep the nation's economy from collapsing. He added that the suspension would be retroactive to the day before he recently declared "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

Simple Math: One easy way for the lap-dog Democratic majority in Congress to start paying back that $700 billion: Stop financing the idiotic, $12-billion-a-month occupation of Iraq, which — remember? — is what many of them got elected to do in the first place.

Genuine Genuflection: It's not every day you see the Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, literally take to one knee, begging for a loan from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to save Wall Street. These days, it's pretty much every 90 minutes.

Speaking of the bailout: Watching Congress bicker and sputter to get a deal to save the economy last week, didn't it occur to you how grand it would be to have someone in Washington, D.C., willing and able to take charge of this sort of crisis? Like, you know, a real president?

Meanwhile: Rounding out her résumé to become the next vice president of the United States, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Yahoo!, visited the U.N. building, where she was introduced for the first time to several foreign leaders, and elevators.

Grounded: Two crows in the area have tested positive for West Nile virus. Both insisted they got it through a tainted nutritional supplement.

He's Still the King of Nothing: Among other trivia, the latest "citizens" initiative from professional huckster Tim Eyman requires synchronization of traffic lights on heavily traveled roads. Next up from Mr. Big Ideas: a measure specifying pansies, not petunias, in municipal flower boxes.

And Finally: State Democrats, never ones to file frivolous lawsuits, lost a legal challenge to force gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi, R-Sprawl, to describe himself as "Republican" on the ballot rather than "GOP Party." Personally, we'd leave anyone insisting on calling himself a member of the "Grand Old Party Party" to his own devices.

A section and Thursday's Northwest Weekend section. Email: rjudd@seattletimes.com