Right now, Fox News is about to make a huge deal over John Kerry getting a manicure before the debate. Before they went to commercial, they had the title “KERRY SHOCKER” up on the screen — my parents already knew what the big story was about.

Perhaps, the Bush campaign and Fox News should next be going after baseball players for having pre-game rituals for good luck. Seriously, can Fox get any more petty? Can its loyal viewers get any dumber for believing these petty issues are of any importance?

O’Reilly had Newt Gingrich and Dan Quayle as pre-debate analysts. Gingrich offered up that Bush is going to want to keep the debate lighthearted — kind of similar to Reagan using the “I will not exploit my opponent’s youth and inexperience for political purposes” remark as disengaging the enemy. I don’t know yet what Kerry would do if Bush made that sort of remark, but if it were me, I would sternly lecture Bush on war casualties. It really just seems to me that if Bush goes the lighthearted route, Kerry could easily make that tactic backfire. But that’s just me.

In the meantime, an AP story written about the debates before the debates happened was leaked.