Ok, good news, and an apology. The good news is that this isn't mysql's fault at all. The network-manager package is breaking /etc/network/interfaces, causing the lo interface to not get an IP address. The SQL syntax error was a red herring, and is not actually related to the server not starting.
I'll drop the severity of this bug back to normal. Apologies for cluttering it with a bunch of unrelated stuff. The n-m bug is http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=688355, fwiw. Thanks noah
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