At Hofstra University, two podiums flanking a bald eagle each face my desk. As the American public tunes in to the debate tonight, all eyes will be on one person: me. Tonight, I will decide who gets to be President of the United States.

It was my honor to accept NBC’s offer to pick the next Commander-in-Chief, and I assure you that I do not take the assignment lightly. My colleagues say, “But Lester! Your job is to be entirely impartial and unbiased!” I smile and nod, knowing that they are incomparably jealous of my control of the American psyche. When the candidates take the stage to seek my sole personal approval for the top job, I will challenge them to present me with their solutions to the nation’s most pressing and difficult issues. I will hear their thoughts on the economy. I will encourage substantive discussion regarding how to best combat terrorism in the modern age. I will ask them to ban street parking near my home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.I will measure the accuracy of the facts they recite based on my memory and level of interest.

In order to give each nominee equal opportunity to sway my omnipotent decision, I have devised a clever system of time constraints that I will impose on their answers. Additionally, I will ask that the audience hold their applause until the end of the program when I turn around and let them see the gravitas within my fashionably bespectacled eyes. Frankly, I find other people’s presence and input entirely unnecessary, but the network insisted on having a crowd there. I suppose that there is a lot to learn by witnessing the hard-hitting questions I level at the contestants as I struggle with the herculean task of picking America’s leader.

As you watch me tonight, discuss with your friends and family how lucky we are to live in the sort of democracy where one bold, handsome journalist can the decide the course of history. And on November 8th, a date which NBC requires I mention several times tonight, just know that my birthday is exactly 4 months away.