Woman, you are KILLIN me.
I was really surprised at how good this debate was. I thought both guys did a lot better than I thought. I’d give a slight edge to Kerry, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough to him going in the polls. Bush also did pretty well. I’d say he mainly lost the debate because he became flustered and impatient in the 2nd half. I was very surprised that Kerry could be as asertive as he was. Good job to both guys.
The Demos better spin this debate into gold for Kerry; otherwise John’s efforts would be wasted.
I also thought the debate was pretty substantial, with many opportunities for interaction.
I too thought Bush would do better. He seemed like a whipped hounddog. When he asked for his extra 30 seconds, he seemed almost submissive.
Kerry won this pure and simple. Bush just looked tired and sad.
And orange.
Presidential debates, especially the first ones, can make a difference. According to some info that I saw on TV earlier today, President Carter was leading Reagan by a good margin in the polls until their first debate. Reagan did so well that he went on to win the election. Nixon was leading Kennedy until the first debate. There have been other times when it apparently turned an election. I don’t think they hurt George W. Bush much in 2000. He did a much better job then.
Missed the entire thing. Attended a back-to-school thing at my kid’s kindergarden instead.
If even Fox can’t spin the debate for Bush, he must have totally cratered. :eek:
Can’t wait to see the transcripts and highlight clips.
I thought Kerry could use Abu Ghraib as a response to the ICC issue: “Yea, the ICC might have a problem with murder, rape and torture by American soldiers, so I can see why you’d rather have your justice department oversee the actions of our troops.”
I was going to vote for Kerry just because I don’t agree with Bush on most of his policies, except the tax cut (because I was greedy, not because it’s good for the country). But after this debate I actually have hope that Kerry might make a good president after all. And I found myself liking him. He was together, expressed himself well, came across, at least to me, as having well-thought-out responses. I think he is much more intelligent and experienced than Bush. Bush was the governor of a state. Kerry has been in Congress for 20 years. He seemed much more personable and more “human” I guess you would say. I had tears when he was talking about our men not having the proper equipment (despite 200 BILLION dollars spent) and their families having to order it on the internet and send it to them. I have been concerned about this very issue for months and never throught that he would admit we can’t even equip our boys properly to save them from injury or even death, when an international audience was listening. And meanwhile the taxpayers are giving Halliburton millions on a contract they didn’t even bid on.
The one thing I did get from Bush was how overwhelming it must be to be confronted with one crisis after another and the buck stops here. He had nothing to prepare him for 9/11 so he made a terrible mistake, probably with the advice of bad advisors. Now we are in a horiffic mess that someone has to clean up before thousands of boys are killed and our country is bankrupt.
I knew when Colin Powell spoke before the United Nations that it was bullshit and throught everyone else had to know that, so at the time I wasn’t too worried that we would go to war. I still don’t know what happened. They cannot have been convinced by the flimsy, questionable evidence of WMD in that report. Doesn’t bode well for the future when a massive religious war breaks out all over the middle east. If we think we are in the shit now…wait.
Fighting just in Baghdad is like having Manhattan invaded by insurgents and trying to engage in combat with them without harming the citizens and destroying property. It’s impossible. And that’s only one city. I can’t even think about it without being overwhelmed by the impossibility of it all, never mind trying to convert divergent Islamic sects into a cohesive democracy.
To me it seems only God can fix the mess we have made in Iraq. For two billion dollars I would have gone over there and assasinated Sadam myself and left the money to my kids. If kerry is elected, God help him.
I’ll be interested to see what the public’s reaction is in the coming days. CBS was showing the reaction of a focus group of undecided voters, and they called it for Kerry by a substantial margin. I’ve heard a lot of buzz about Kerry being the “winner” tonight, so it should be interesting to see how it plays out. But I actually thought Bush did well. Some people mentioned the stammering and blank stares, but I didn’t notice much of that at all, at least not compared to his performance in the past. I think he’s definitely getting better at public speaking. One of the things I didn’t like, though, was his constantly repeating the idea that Kerry somehow shouldn’t be allowed to say “It’s the wrong war”, under the reasoning that it undermines the war effort. I’m sorry, but that’s just a stupid argument. The guy is running against you; you don’t get to cry “no fair” whenever he criticizes you. It is the wrong war, and people need to know the truth.
And Kerry did a great job as well. I thought he was really strong with making his remarks pithy, and avoiding the “rambling” Kerry that so many people seem to loathe. He hit hard and he kept it coming. He put Bush on the defensive. I especially liked how he called Bush on his usual trick of trying to conflate Iraq with 9/11. Bush sounded downright petulant in his response - “I know Osama attacked us.” Of course Kerry would come out a lot stronger if he hadn’t voted to authorize the war. I don’t believe Saddam was a threat to the U.S., and I’d prefer if Kerry stopped saying he was. But even so, his point that Bush went about it the wrong way is still valid.
Looking at some of the reponses here, I’m getting a little Al Gore deja vu. All I’ve heard for the past few months is that Kerry vacillates and can’t make a clear, concise point. And now that he has done a commendable job of being clear and concise, and really hammering his points home, I notice several people are already calling him “smug”. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, I guess.
I watched on ABC. They had 350 people they polled - 35% Republican, 35% Democrat, 30% independent. On who won, it came out (IIRC) 34% Bush, 17% tie, 49% Kerry, a clear win, especially interesting since he got most of the independents.
My FIL, a long Republican, says he likes Kerry a lot more after the debate. Bush still has big negatives, the problem was that Kerry didn’t have big positives. This has got to help. Bush may have kept saying he was a flip-flopper, but he didn’t come across that way.
I was dreading listening to the debate, expecting the worst, but I was pleasantly surprised. They did talk about real issues!
TDS could have been better if someone had messed up. Lots of the jokes seemed written in advance. The best was the Poland thing, and Stewart reaming Giuliani a new asshole. Rudy was obviously working from a script - notice he didn’t say anything that positive about Bush.
How many countries were in on the original invasion of Iraq? Kerry said three. Bush added Poland. Isn’t that the sort of thing a President should know?
I think he’s wrong, but I don’t have a cite.
Off to look for one. Feel free to beat me to it.
Nope. My mistake. It was the Polish peace-keeping forces that came in later.
What’s the diff, anyway? Kerry made the point that the “coalition” was a farce. He mentioned several times that the U.S. bore 90% of the casualties and cost, and Bush never refuted that.
Orange Bush monkey
Sorry … I will go away now…
My god I pray this is a joke.
There’s so much more to show. Bush spent an awful lot of time looking like a wet angry monkey.
And after seeing this, you don’t pause to wonder what it is you are such a fan of?
Try saying “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…” and click your heels three times.
Several points:
Kerry’s fake orange tan: why did they remove it? And, did he get extra botox injections?
Kerry kept yakking abouit how he would “enlist the allies” to “help in Iraq”. Well, since the French and Germans (who are the ostensible “allies” he refers to, have NO interest in sending troops to iraq, just what was he referring to? Mongolia and Micronisia?
The podium heihghts: the camera kept panning, trying to show us how much taller Kerry is than Bush…why does this matter?
All in all, I would say that Bush gave more honest answers…Kerry can’t tell us why he keeeps contradicting himseld. But at least that awful spray-on tan is gone!
Kerry can’t stop contradicting; Bush can’t finish a sentence. Six of one, half dozen of another i suppose.
As for Bush giving more honest answers, he basically stuck to his speaking points like a drowning man to a piece of wood. Face facts, Bush looked really bad tonight and Kerry could’ve made him look a lot worse.
IMHO, ya’ll are right about the “Kerry hasn’t said how he is going to pay for this.” comment Bush made. That should’ve been an easy point for Kerry but he let it slide.
I really liked how he used Bush I words about Iraq and our armies being viewed as an occupier against Bush II. Brilliant.
One thought I had, Is it possible that Bushs team ignored this debate in an effort to prep him better for the town hall debate. That’s the one where he is likely to look worse. Maybe they are building him up for that knowing expectations will be lower and it will be easier for him to look like the winner.
It was a little hard to watch Bush struggle to think of the next word. I had to emphasize with the guy. It’s terrible when the word is on the tip of your tongue and just won’t come out.
But it was awesome when he said something like we are also going after “Iraq…Saddam Hussein…Bin Laden.” And it was awesome when he said Kerry wasn’t the right man “to lead the world.”
Freudian slips?
The only real point at which it felt Kerry started to falter was on the pre-emption question, when he came off with that “global test” thing. Bush seized on it with both hands, but it felt like the only truly solid punch that the President landed. Think I’m mixing metaphors, eff it.
Kerry also could’ve reined in the silly grin a little more. Overall though, he just pummeled the shit outta W. Put him on the ropes early and never stopped landing blows. It was a glorious, glorious thing.