Obama, McCain Say Nothing Interesting at Columbia

Oh yeah, Obama and McCain were at Columbia yesterday. We were too busy with floating lanterns, and didn't have a ticket besides, so we defer to the Columbia J-School site devoted to the forum. Despite their academic background, the cubs find some interesting nooks and crannies. For example, they get Jordan's Queen Noor on record: "I applied to the Columbia Journalism School and ended up deferring, and then within a year I was married [to King Hussein]. I always thought that journalism was a good way to address the problems that I saw going on around me." Terry Southern couldn't write a parody sharper than that.

There's also a live blog of the remarks.

For a first-hand report from "a New Media student at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism," it's shockingly thin. The correspondent offers only one McCain quote, "The busiest people are the busiest, and the busier they get the busier they get." She talks to a former Marine who attended with her and "thought McCain came off well." Another post sports some cracks on Toby McGuire. We never went to J-School and we could do better than that.

In the last ditch we had to go to the evil MSM, and found Time magazine only slightly more informative. In his segment, Obama apparently advocated "the creation of additional public agencies to encourage volunteerism," while McCain prefers "volunteer organizations that are completely separate from the government." Both Obama and McCain celebrated the role of mayors like Sarah Palin, and ROTC. Time says the event "was long on serious policy issues and short on one-liners," but offers no evidence.

Other vendors offered similarly anodyne summaries. Jesus Christ. We stayed up late, and you clicked through, for this? Let us embark together on a class-action suit.