Just a reminder, it’s pretty hard to go from coke-snorting C-student to leader of the free world without being really good at cramming for a test. That’s why this story from the 2000 election was such a big deal :

The front-runner for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination faltered Thursday in an international affairs pop quiz posed by Andy Hiller, a political reporter for WHDH-TV in Boston.

Hiller asked Bush to name the leaders of Chechnya, Taiwan, India and Pakistan. Bush was only able to give a partial response to the query on the leader of Taiwan, referring to Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui simply as “Lee.” He could not name the others.

“Can you name the general who is in charge of Pakistan?” Hiller asked, inquiring about Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf, who seized control of the country October 12.

“Wait, wait, is this 50 questions?” asked Bush.

Hiller replied: “No, it’s four questions of four leaders in four hot spots.”

Yeah, it was a cheap shot, but an important one.

I have little doubt that Bush can study hard and do well in a debate, but the lesson here is that he should already know this stuff and be able to make tough decisions based on that knowledge. From everything I’ve seen about the way Bush answers questions and gets his information, I really doubt that he knew more than half the stuff he’ll be regurgitating during these debates a month ago.

That said, Bush is in a good place going into tomorrow’s debate. Sure, he’s had a shitty week, but he’s also an underdog again. If we stop gloating for a few minutes, we can see that Bush has gone back to a situation in which expectations are so low that he’ll be able to claim victory for just going 90 minutes without pissing his pants. He’s sorta like the downs syndrome kid in the Special Olympics that everyone’s rooting for, even though the crowd knows he’s be lucky to just cross the finish line. Tomorrow night it’s Kerry’s job to remind everyone that this is the real Olympics.