Thursday, September 30th, 2004

"We Looked At The Same Intelligence…"

And one was missing after about 45 minutes.

Bush really struggled tonight and I was very surprised. I was at the Wake Forest debate in 2000, and he at least battled Gore to a draw there. But tonight, he launched early into his soundbite (pundits call it ‘message’, and have so far been very charitable to him tonight) and stayed in it often.

Kerry ran the table and even got Bush to look real stupid on Iran (“I didn’t establish sanctions against Iran, a previous administration did”…OK so what have you done about Iran?)–a point none of the pundits seem to have caught either, yet.

I think Kerry missed some huge points though. No Abu Ghraib. No baiting on the draft (Bush volunteered that the military would remain “all voluntary” in his closing). Just one mention of “Mission Accomplished”. All in all, though, he wins this one, if only because Bush looked like he forgot to pop his No-Doz and Viagra.

posted by @ 7:02 pm | 6 Comments



6 Responses to “"We Looked At The Same Intelligence…"”

  1. Jay Smooth says:
    October 1, 2004 at 2:09 am

    yeah! I was gonna talk about that Iran thing in my post, but my mom had to go to bed and kicked me out of the house..

    First he said “we have all the sanctions we could possibly have!” then when Kerry pointed out the sanctions’ weakness in being unilateral Bush said “oh well those aren’t our sanctions..” -well then why were just taking credit for them like 30 seconds ago??!?!?

  2. Anonymous says:
    October 1, 2004 at 12:56 pm

    Jeff! Look at me getting all high tech! I agree with you that he missed some opportunities, but I actually really liked Kerry, and thought he won more than Bush lost (which clearly also happened). I was so amped when he said that he would shut down a nuclear program, and raised the idea of holding the U.S. to the same standards as we hold the rest of the world. What? The global warming stuff too, and when he said, “The president and I don’t need tax cuts.” To hear that in a debate was F-R-E-S-H. When Bush babbled on about how he’s against the international criminal court, all I could think about was Kissinger. The standards are low, true, but I was still pleasantly surprised.

    EMB

  3. Jeff says:
    October 1, 2004 at 1:29 pm

    jay, your moms is definitely gangsta! yeah, even today, nobody talked about it on all the radio shows i heard–despite the fact that now the spin is apparently that kerry was wrong/stupid/foot-in-mouth about the whole w.m.d.’s coming across the border comment.

    lizz, yeah, but let’s be sober about it. gore killed bush in the first debate last time too. bush may still recover in time to make kerry’s strengths–domestic policy–look like a weakness. i figure that’s teh direction of the spin beginning early next week.

    and is anyone else tripping off the fact that the first headline this morning was about an all-out us offensive in iraq that supposedly wiped out a bunch of insurgents? it’s almost like someone pulled the trigger last night in minute 46 or so.

  4. Anjali Taneja says:
    October 1, 2004 at 7:08 pm

    I had low expectations of both bush and kerry, and kerry beat my expectations while I was surprised by Bush’s breakdown.

    I agree, Kerry missed some very important points, like abu ghraib, as you mentioned. Some of my additions… the $87 billion for Iraq (he should have explained), and a mention of some other global issues (for example, global hiv/aids).

    I wish there was SOME mention by either of them, of the ongoing deaths in iraq of innocent civilians. Kerry could have really addressed this — just a few hours before the debate, more than 35 children were killed in Iraq. And tens to hundreds every week. It doesn’t do a debate justice to not talk about that, in my humble opinion (ESPECIALLY if people in other countries are watching it — we look very sheltered and not-concerned about the direct results of our actions).

    It’s all about the image. It’s all about the fubu. And these two looked like they were in their own world (even though kerry was called a “globalist” after the debate by some commentators).

  5. Scape Martinez says:
    October 3, 2004 at 7:04 pm

    What up y’all, I’m new to all this blog stuff so I’m just passin through, gonna say mines and dip. I think Kerry did do a good job, he coulda ripped harder, but remember. George Bush doesn’t NEED to rip. I’m serious, as I watched him make his faces and squirm and look like a deer in the headlights, I knew what was up. See the very nextday I’m listening to KGO, to NPR etc… and they talk to some folks. What do they say? “Well George has never been too much of a talker, what he says isn’t as important as what he DOES.”

    W’s power base is a bunch of fools who like to view their leader as “folksy”, I like to substitute the word “dumb”. So when Kerry gets deep, we may feel him, but trust a whole lot of folks in the Bible Belt and swing states are not. They want the US to go backwards, not forwards, so W’s is sticking to the script, eating corn on the cob and pork rinds and damning the French….and the U.N. LOL

  6. Anonymous says:
    October 4, 2004 at 11:05 am

    Silver spoon out of one side of the mouth and pork rinds out the other. Anjali, you’re totally OTM. “90% of casualties”? That’s Kerry’s new math. Let’s see how Smiley matches up against MF Doom tomorrow.

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