WTF Is It Now?!?

Bunnypants having some kind of hissy over debate provisions

A senior Republican official tells ABC News that the first presidential debate, scheduled for Thursday in Miami, could be canceled unless there is a breakthrough soon in negotiations between the two campaigns and the Commission on Presidential Debates.

The only remaining sticking point is the reluctance of the Commission to sign the agreement negotiated by the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

The commission and the campaigns have been negotiating a side letter the commission (and moderators) would sign instead of the agreement, but the Bush campaign finds the current draft of the letter too weakly worded.

Then there's this, from Chris Bowers:

However, what I really think is going on here is an attempt by the Bush campaign to shift the post-debate focus away from the content of debate itself and toward a "Biased Debate Commission" storyline. This would especially be the case if things do not go well in the debate for Bush, and would be very similar to what happened with the CBS memo story.

The Republican post-debate spin could center on how the commission and the moderators, who refused to sign the agreement, did not abide to the agreement and were unfair to Bush during the debate (a couple of lame examples will be offered up and hammered over and over again by the VRWC). It is an attempt to make the medium the story, and once again produce the culture war narrative of a small conspiracy of liberal elites working against the President and the majority he represents.

It will become impossible for Kerry to win any future debates, because the pundits will be frightened and many people will have the perception that Kerry has an unfair advantage due to the Protocols of the Liberals of Hollywood and Academia.