Savage Vs Brown: The Drunk Moderator

New York Times columnist Mark Oppenheimer says he was pretty much hammered during the debate between Dan Savage and Brian Brown.

Terry Miller, Dan’s spouse, came out to offer me a drink. I eagerly accepted. From then on, I did not stop drinking. It started with Terry’s Mai Tai, as Mr. Miller named his fabulous rum drink, and continued with the red wine that Mr. Brown politely brought when he arrived without his wife, who was pregnant with their eighth child, and then the white wine that Mr. Colwell provided to accompany dinner. (For those who are curious, we ate Northwest sockeye salmon with Washington sweet corn, heirloom tomatoes and new-potato gnocchi; dessert was roasted peaches with an oat-and-almond crumble.) But even if I was no longer sober by the end of the meal, I still managed to exert enough discipline to hold the debate to an hour.[snip] Every time they disagreed, I drank some more.

Both Brown and Savage later told Oppenheimer they considered the debate to have been a waste of time. Savage: "Playing host put me in this position of treating Brian Brown like a guest. It was better in theory than in practice — it put me at a disadvantage during the debate, as the undertow of playing host resulted in my being more solicitous and considerate than I should’ve been. If I had it to do over again, I think I’d go with a hall."