After the Looonnng, Long Debate

Eventually the first Egyptian Presidential debate ended last night, or early this morning for those in Cairo. The debate itself lasted four and a half hours (though there were breaks and the candidates got breathers), but it still ran past two a.m. and with the "pregame show" talkfest and very long commercial interludes the program ran more than six hours. If you missed it and understand Arabic, you can find it where the live-streaming was last night on my post of yesterday, or here at the sponsors' website. This is mostly for those of you who are retired, unemployed, or hospitalized; the tape, complete with the pre-show talkfest and various documentary clips and lots and lots of commercials, runs about six and a half hours. I have not watched it all.

An early attempt at an English translation and transcript can be found here: round one; round two.

Among those who liveblogged it in English:

• The New York Times

• The Guardian

• Zeinobia's Egyptian Chronicles blog (click on the second screen, which is her transcript of her tweets.

I will be posting my own personal reactions and comments later this morning or early afternoon as I get my thoughts together. In the meantime I note that Amr Moussa is 75 years old, and no wonder he called Iran an Arab country at two in the morning. I can only echo this tweet: