Asymmetrical Information

Bush keeps having these odd moments where it looks like the camera is hypnotising him. Then he suddenly snaps into motion, as if the aliens finished downloading the new instructions.

*chortle*

You're hilarious, Jane. Although I have to say that although I agree Kerry wasn't able to totally shake his compulsive ramble-habit, he came off (to my great surprise) much better overall than Bush. Where is the man who whalloped Gore 4 years ago??? One would expect 4 years in office would have increased his confidence and public speaking ability.

George leaned on the podium and talked to me. John stood up straight and performed for the audience.

George wins on that. It doesn't much matter what they said point by point. If I scored it on what they said, I'd score it a draw until the closing statement, which George wins.

Bush does seem to talk to the audience. Kerry has an annoying habit of pointing at the audience, and what is the deal with him making a fist with his thumb on the top and outside of his fingers.

C'mon, Jane. Call the debate, boxing style. Then we'll have a sense of whether the judges are in the tank or not. :)

It was close. I go 10-8 Kerry; maybe 10-9. Definitely on points - no TKO. I give Kerry the decision because he (as a result of his inept campaign to date) was the underdog, and he gave at least as good as he got. Bush had a couple of nice moments, and looked pretty good early on - I thought I was seeing the end of the Kerry campaign. But Kerry got better (with a couple of notable exceptions) as the night wore on, and Bush got plaintive. Bush needs to remember that facts are not his friends, and he sounds silly when he tries to use them. Also, I think repeating the same thing over and over again (a) makes his point sound vapid and one dimensional, and (b) makes me suspect he doesn't know that many words. I actually thought that Kerry was significantly more concise than expected, but I may be sufferring from lowered expectations.

I suspect some Dems are going to argue that it was a convincing win by Kerry; I definitely wouldn't go that far. I think Kerry proved that he was in the fight, but he certainly didn't take Bush out of it.

10-9 Kerry. Maybe 10-8. Better than I expected, about what I'd hoped.

Always instructive to read the opposition. Speaking as a former independent and not generally a huge Kerry fan, I was very impressed by Kerry's composure and ability to answer the questions with knowledge and clarity (albeit with the typical lack of specificity ingrained in most pols).

But what constantly astonishes me - and this was never more so the case than while watching our President this evening - was how it was possible that this bumbling, inarticulate, ill-educated man who is clearly not in command of any set of critical facts, could attract the votes of even 10% of the nation, let alone a majority.

We on the other side cannot fathom what could be the attraction in having as our President a man who repeatedly stresses what "hard work" the job is. Move over son and let someone with the requisite skill set and stamina take charge now.

Martin:

I think the theory is that he connects with regular people (who, under this theory, I guess are also bumbling, inarticulate, and illeducated).

Ugh. They both suck. My perspective on this is that I suspect Kerry is more competent to manage Iraq, but I doubt his will. I do not doubt Bush's will, but I doubt his competence.

Kerry doesn't have the emotional intelligence to realize that while 'the war was a mistake, but we need to win it anyway' is intellectually coherent, it's emotionally incomprehensible. I thought Jim Lehrer's question on 'last man to die for a mistake' was on point, and one for which K's answer was weak. Kerry says things like "It's important to be resolute" rather than "I'm going to do whatever it takes" and by doing so, he makes being resolute a conscious pose, which makes him non-credible.

Bush apparently doesn't have the brains or political courage to recognize/admit that things are at serious risk of failure in Iraq. Given that he's been able to sell himself as resolute, he could have reassured people he's not stubborn/blind to facts by doing so. He needed to convince me that he recognizes that our efforts and methods to date have been insufficient. I didn't hear anything convincing about speeding up the pipeline of reconstruction disbursement or anything else which would convince me that he'd do anything except more of the same.

SomeCallMeTim - By this reasoning, I guess you would be happy to have your car mechanic as your President No offense to mechanics. God help me, they keep me on the road. But somehow, I imagine my President to be capable of more than the average Joe. Is that setting the bar too high?

Yeah, I mean, maybe I'd rather have a barbeque with Bush (he seems like he could help me finish the keg) but I'd much rather have a genius as my President.

Kerry wore the red tie, and Bush wore the blue.

So does this fix the state colors for the post-election electoral maps, or was it just an odd fluke?

Jane, your observations and comments are really on and a treat to read. Being a partisan for Bush, I was a little disappointed in some of his responces to some of Kerry's statements. Like you, I saw plenty of opportunities to really slam Kerry, that were missed or purposely avoided.

This is the first time I've checked out a "blog" site, and I was lucky to check yours out first. I look forward to reading more of your insightful and entertaining comments.

I'm just been trying to get a sense of the 'aftermath' of the debate.

Frankly, given the play that blogging was given at the two conventions, I think the real story will be the spin, the insta-polls, and the blogs after the debate, rather than the debate itself. Can't wait to see the papers.

Does Kerry keep his secret plans to fix Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and the rest of the world in a lockbox?

Didn't the Senate reject Kyoto 98-0? The whole global warming and greenhouse gas thing is just geopolitics anyway. More than half the country has opted for the benefits of large or high performance vehicles. Would Kyoto make the Mustang or the Escalade prohibitively expensive to own? Yeah. It's such an easy point.

"Boy, is Bush relentlessly on message. So
relentlessly that when these debates are over, I
will have to pound myself int eh head with a small
hammer to get the sound bytes out."

You know, it's hard work.

kerry's plans aren't secret. check his website. I guess "secret plan" is the new noise from the noise machine.
I can't stand Bush's "folksie" style (which, by the way is fake. He started talking like that as a means of promoting himself in Texas politics), but it does work with quite a few people. I think it works best with undereducated voters who don't have the background knowledge to spot his representations and rely exclusively on their emotional reactions to pick a candidate.

I'd much rather have a genius as my President.

Geniuses (not that Kerry is one) tend to fall in love with abstract and intellectually fashionable theories about how to order a society, which invariably necessitate tons of coercion and prove disasterous when implemented. I agree wholeheartedly with William Buckley's famous statement that he'd rather be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. The US Presidency is a job for a good administrator; leave the geniuses and visionaries to their literary journals and particle accelerators.

I dont know what some of you were watching. My high school civics teacher had a better grasp of foreign affairs than Bush did. I thought Kerry was very good. His line about "outsourcing" the hunt for Bin Laden was the most memorable quote of the night. He also innoculated himself from the reps most common theme, the "I voted for the eighty seven billion..." By stating that he made a mistake in his wording, while Bush made a mistake in the war on Iraq, "Which is worse?" Kerry took that quote off the board while at the same time admitting a mistake, something Bush has never done, and is front and center to public opinion as it pertains to the war strategy. Kerry came off as much more intelligent, much more articulate, and much more Presidential, than the President.

Bush was terrible. He babbled about "mixed messages", "know in my heart", and "hard work" much the way Admiral Stockdale muttered "gridlock" to answer every question. His facial expressions on the split screen called to mind a petulant child forced into wearing the dunce cap in the front of the room. He lost his train of thought midsentence in several of his answers, and then completed answering the question with information entirely irrelevant to the question. Its scary that someone this stupid actually is President, and clearly demonstrates why he had to sit on Cheneys lap in front of the 911 commission.

I didn't watch the debate, but my wife enjoyed the choreography.

Okay, everyone knows which way I was leaning anyway, but I must say I was amazed at how poorly Bush did. Now I understand why all of the 'Pubs were on talk shows days before talking about what a great debater Kerry is and how little experience Bush has...they knew this was going to happen. They wanted expectations to be low.

Well, my expectations of Bush's performance were low anyway and Jane, I am surprised, Bush did just an unbelievably bad job, and Kerry did a...not bad job. Kerry wasn't great, I agree he should have kept his mouth shut about Bush asking Lehrer for additional time...partly because he never seemed to have the answer ready when the time was granted and stuttered for the first 10 seconds.

I think it was Greenfield on CNN who said right after the debates (and I don't remember the exact quote), "I don't think it's going to change anyone's mind, but I think it'll give undecideds a whole lot to think about."

I have always thought this was going to be a very close election. I still do.

Bush was trying to attract voters, not to 'win a debate'. Kerry seemed to be most interested in carrying on a conversation with Jim Lehrer, almost never looking into the camera to connect with the tens of millions of voters watching at home.

I'd say this USA Today poll marks the end for Kerry:

http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/2004/10/read-em-and-weep-usual-suspects.html

"Kerry says the thing to do about the Iranian nuclear problem is offer to provide Iran the nuclear fuel for their reactors. This may have excellent wonky credentials, or it may be one of those silly policy proposals that people only talk about because they can't think of anything that would work. But it sounds perfectly idiotic."

It sounds idiotic because it is idiotic, not to mention down right dangerous. This just gives the Iranian mullahs an instant leg up towards building atomic weapons. The hard part is getting the enriched uranium or plutonium. JFK has decided he's going to make it easy for them to do that. They can either further enrich the uranium to weapons grade or use it to make plutonium. Who's going to stop them, a piece of paper( er, I mean a treaty), Hans Blix and friends?

Just what we want to give a regime that recently hung a 16 year-old girl for sleeping with her boyfriend and then talking back to the judge. A regime that has announced that it will use a nuclear weapon on Isreal -- so what if they kill 30 million Muslims, all the Jews will be dead but there will still be lots of Muslims.

This statement alone is sufficient to disqualify John Kerry from ever being President of the United States. I once heard the CEO of a major US corporation described as an eloquent idiot. John Kerry fits the description perfectly, without the eloquence.

A former 'nucular' physicist

In terms of forensic performance, Bush lost, in a big way. While his voice isn't annoying, he has some pretty annoying vocal mannerisms, including something that sounds like he's whining.

In terms of impact on the voters, we'll know on November 2nd, I guess.

However, while Kerry's performance was pretty good, his message is unappealing. We should go back to bilateral talks with North Korea, but we should have multi-lateral (or UN-mediated) talks with Iran on exactly the same subject? North Korea is a problem, but we should give nuclear fuel to Iran? We should subject our foreign policy to a global popularity contest?

Almost everything that could have been said about the debate has been said, so I'll just add one point Jane (Megan) asked about:

Who cares about Poland? Probably Polish-Americans. I'm not in that demo, but the Polish-Americans I know still have a fond attachment to Poland. Many Polish-Americans live in battleground states. So probably not a bad jab for Dubya to suggest Kerry was dissing Poland.

Moreover, there's the underlying Old Europe vs. New Europe dynamic. Bush might have gone further to suggest that Eastern European governments are in the coalition because they have more recent memories of what it's like to be liberated, whereas others (France) have forgotten. But that wouldn't be diplomatic, so I think he was just giving a shout out to the Poles.

I think that substance makes more news than style. Kerry made more fundamental mistakes in the debate than Bush. By my count, the bunker buster statement was ludicrous, bi-lateral talks with the Norks is just stupid, giving fissionable materials to the mullahs is suicidal, closing the subway in NY was just a plain lie, not signing the Kyoto agreement is silly after Clinton wouldn't do it, he lied about calling Bush a liar, the "Global test" statement was pure blunder, shutting down our nuclear testing is just stupid. And for the anti-war readers how do you feel about Kerry saying he wants 2 new divisions in the Army and more Special Forces? Kerry readers, let's see your list of Bush blunders. I predict in a week that Kerry will have lost 3 more percent in the polls.

Martin:

Why do you assume that everyone measures genius by your criteria? Based on your comments, I doubt I do.

I didn't watch the debates because I can't stand Bush's obvious inability to marshall facts and arguments on the spur of the moment, or Kerry's smooth but droning, hectoring, Massachusetts-elite-liberal blather.

I support Bush even though I can't stand listening to him speak for the same reason that Democrats support Clinton even though he disgraced the office, gave out pardons as political favors, and very possibly raped a woman: because he advocates more policies I agree with than his opponent.

Can we agree that that is actually pretty much the standard people go with? First you find out whose policies you agree with, then you hold your nose at the weaknesses of the candidate advocating them. Meanwhile you pick at the character flaws of the opposing candidate as though they were the critical issue. It's like Democrats who call Bush an idiot unfit to govern, while ignoring what Clinton did. It's about the policies, that's all.

But my god would I love to have a candidate whose policies I agreed with and who was also articulate, modest, honorable, and personable. I don't know why we never seem to end up with people like that. Maybe they just don't go into politics, or maybe almost nobody can stand up to the kind of microscope that politicians are put under.

seemed to me a draw..in that we were left with what we already knew...Bush is on message, genuine, tenacious and a terrible public speaker, Kerry is a articulate and an overly clever guy who can't take his own side in an argument...that will please anyone for whom those characteristics are appealling.

Kerry demonstrated for me that I am right in my assessment of the two of them - at 9-11 it became APPARENT that the world changed, and different rules are needed to accomplish the things that NATO, UN, Geneva accords, MAD, etc accomplished before. Bush realizes this but has yet to hire the right person to tell him what those new things are yet. But he will, because he thinks its his responsability. Kerry stubbornly holds to the liberal side of the cold war argument and, becuase of his brilliance, those things will work this time. OF course, on some things (nuclear freeze, vietnam and communism) he was and is dead wrong, and on the things that were right, the problem they were created is solved or moved on, so even if they WERE right, they're no longer useful.

I see the real purpose of the UN was 1) to keep the members of the security council from going to war with each other (accomplished - silly now for the most part, but a real problem for league of nations and still real in 1947) and
2) to pry colonial possessions from aforementioned security council members with a minimum of bloodshed (mostly accomplished, 'cept israel, rhodesia and french indochina)

They were never very good at their STATED purpose, and they are worse at it now. But the things they did do right in that construct are OBE.

Bush unfortunately is not clever enough to really string this together and knock it home. Maybe the VRWC pundits will. I think the eventual winner is dependant on who has the best cleanup crew.

MarkJ,

As G. K. Chesterton put it when someone suggested that the British party system discouraged the best men from devoting themselves to politics,

I doubt whether the best men ever would devote themselves to politics. The best men devote themselves to pigs and babies and things like that.

That said, we do seem to be having peculiarly bad luck in this country lately with our crop of, er, "statesmen." What I'd give for a few politicians as articulate and quick-witted as the average British MP. Even if I disagreed with everything they said and did, at least I could listen to them speak without either wincing or falling asleep.

Personally, I hated the whole thing. I thought the questions were inane, the format jejune and the answers fomulaic. The only surprising thing that either party said were Kerry's statements:

And part of that leadership is sending the right message to places like North Korea. Right now the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense.

You talk about mixed messages: We're telling other people you can't have nuclear weapons but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapons that we might even contemplate using.

Not this president. I'm going to shut that program down. And we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation.

I just can't get over it. Unilateral Nuclear Diarmarment returns from the grave. What else is he going to bring back from the 70s, Disco?

This cannot be acceptable to any large segment of the American people. We are the good guys. We can be trusted with nuclear weapons. Our possesion of nuclear weapons is an assurance to the rest of the world that they can live in peace, not a reason or excuse for them to so arm themselves. Kerry is adopting the position of the tinpot dictator. If the United States has nuclear weapons, I should have them also, so I can protect myelf from American Imperialism. If I were the RNC I would have a major national ad campaign playing this up.

AND

The president always has the right and always has had the right for pre-emptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the cold war. And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control. No president through all of American history has ever ceded and nor would I the right to pre-empt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.

But if and when you do it, Jim, you've got to do it in a way that passes the test. That passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing. And you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

Here we have our own secretary of state who's had to apologize to the world for the presentation he made to the United Nations. I mean we can remember when President Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis sent his secretary of state to Paris to meet with de Gaulle. And in the middle of the discussion to tell them about the missiles in Cuba he said, here, let me show you the photos. And de Gaulle waved him off and said, no, no, no. The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me. How many leaders in the world today would respond to us as a result of what we've done in that way?

Kerry burried it in a lot of fog but I think what he said is that we can act preemptively, but only if Jacques Chirac would trust him to do it and the Secretary of Sate won't have to appologize to the UN.

Again, I think the Republicans can and should lash him for betraying a bedrock principle of American foreign policy that goes back to George Washington. We will not subordinate our self-defense to the judgment or needs of our allies. Any thought that we should or would, even by voluntary self-censorship, must be rejected.

Kerry may have won on style, but he also committed a lot of gaffes. Everything that came out of his mouth was a lie. Therefore, Bush's people have a lot more material to work with in bashing Kerry in the next few days, whereas Kerry can only slap himself on the back for winning the debate in the 'high school' sense.

Another thing: GW seemed to lack the killer instinct this time.

When your opponent talks about a "global test", you rip him open and lay his entrails out in the sun.

Instead, GW only expressed what appeared to be bafflement.

"SomeCallMeTim - By this reasoning, I guess you would be happy to have your car mechanic as your President No offense to mechanics. God help me, they keep me on the road. But somehow, I imagine my President to be capable of more than the average Joe. Is that setting the bar too high?

Posted by Martin at September 30, 2004 11:45 PM"

Just to chime in, I frankly would prefer any mechanic, if the “genius” was going to give nuclear material to Iran, subordinate our national interests to France, Russia, Germany, and the UN, all of whom took money from Sadaam in the oil for food scam, and all of whom gave material and/or (im)moral support as our troops were going in to harms way. Who by his own words indicated that anyone who didn’t support removing Sadaam didn’t deserve to be President, of course that was in the primaries. Different place, different “mis-statement”, I guess.

Now let me see, we had to be multi-lateral in Iraq, but have to be bi-lateral in talks with N. Korea, cutting out China, which were it not for China, N. Korea wouldn’t exist after the UN police action. This is sheer genius. By the way, when we got tired of bi-laterally paying N. Korea off with money and food, we (Carter, Clinton, Albright), with the IAEA (UN) gave them access to nuclear material, and now should give them more, so we can track it. This guy’s good.

According to Joe Lockhart, of Rathergate fame, it was a draw as a debate. My bias is not for the self-admitted war criminal “genius”. Even a bad mechanic knows that you’ll get caught if you lie too many times about the same thing to the same people. Who would have guessed that arming an insane, third world dictator with even more atomic bombs was an act of sheer genius by a self admitted war criminal. Did you know that John Kerry was in Vietnam?

Jane’s play by play was good, but in the hind-sight of the “day after”, I have to agree with the guy who said Kerry kept himself in the game. It was not the “KO” he needed, the best the lying, war criminal, genius did was recharge the converted. At the time Gore was said to have won the first debate, now Bush is credited by Dems to have won all the debates with Gore. I thought that Kerry did make good points, but when compared to the litmus test of truth, he was just another BS artist with a mouth full of samples.

"Geniuses (not that Kerry is one) tend to fall in love with abstract and intellectually fashionable theories about how to order a society, which invariably necessitate tons of coercion and prove disasterous when implemented."

I have to say that this reminds me of the neo-conservative plan to democratize the Middle East. To quote David Frum's The Right Man:

"... should the United States take President Bush's words literally and continue the war on terror until terrorism was entirely uprooted from Middle Eastern and Muslim politics? If the United States overthrew Saddam Hussein next, it could create a reliable American ally in the potential superpower of the Arab world. With American troops so close, the Iranian people would be emboldened to rise against the mullahs. And as Iran and Iraq built moderate, representative, pro-Western regimes, the pressure on the Saudis and the other Arab states to liberalize and modernize would intensify. It was quite a gamble--but also quite a prize."

Some of the comments on the nuke bunker breaker are just way off. Can anyone really agree with the idea of setting off small tactical nukes? Do you have any idea what global opinion would be? They should build bigger bombs, but use of any tactical nuke would completely isolate the US from the world.

Kerry didnt say we were going to disengage with NK in multilateral negotiations, only that we would speak to them bilaterally as well. Perhaps NK did develope nukes while ignoring the previous agreements with the Clinton administration. But for all the weight China was suppose to bring to the table in the multilateral negotiations, NK has developed 6-8 more nukes while Bush has pursued this policy. The biggest threat of North Korea is the sale of nuke tech/material to terrorists due to the desperate state of their economy. Imo the best course in NK at this point would be appeasement in order to make the sale of nuke technology out of economic desperation less likely. Theres no guarenteeing that appeasement would work, but we have shown no inclination to disarm NK, and what we are doing now has failed. But appeasement will be off the table for both parties, this election is hypermasculine.

Iran cannot be allowed to gain a single nuke. Iran is a much larger current supporter of global terror than Iraq ever was. Everyone fears the mushroom cloud over NY or DC, but also consider Iraq in the green zone. We would be in a much stronger position to deal with Iran if not for the catastrophe in Iraq. By finding no wmd in Iraq after throwing the inspectors out, we will not be trusted by our traditional allies, and the occupation certainly limits our unilateral options with Iran. Theres a reason both candidates chose to speak rather extensively on NK, and didnt touch Iran.

How does cancelling a tactical nuclear weapon such as the nuclear bunker buster become "unilateral nuclear disarmament"?

As far as the $87 billion appropriation goes, does anyone really care what happened? To be completely accurate, Kerry didn't care for the details of the bill. He cosponsored an amendment to pay for at least part of it by rolling back the tax cut for upper income people. When that failed he voted against the bill. He knew it was going to pass anyway. So he voted to make a point. Somehow I don't consider that particularly unpatriotic.

"I would rather have a German division in front of me
than a French one behind me."
--- General George S. Patton

What is it about the left’s penchant for defeat, and imitating the French? I have listened for the last 3 years as the Dems have alleged, pointed out, and demanded defeat of not only the war on terrorism, but Iraq, Afghanistan and the economy. This constant drum roll of the discontentment and defeatism, declaring, “The sky is falling” like Chicken Little, is absolutely insane. Not only declaring defeat in the on going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and apparently now in N. Korea and Iran situations. As important as is how to get out of this newest challenge, is how we got into it.

How did we? It was a foreign policy devoid of any credibility, foresight, or common sense the last administration systematically dug a deeper hole for the US on the international arena by trying to placate UN and EU. I smell the three stooges, Jimmy, Willie, and Maddie. Ms Albright has said that it was wrong that the US was the only world power, and that it was unfair. Europe didn’t feel comfortable. It was the same gene pool Kerry has to drink from.

Maddie’s statement a short time ago, in explanation about the N. Korean fiasco caused by the three stooges said, “He lied to me”. Odd, you wouldn’t normally think that out of line for an insane third world dictator who starves his people and sends teams of assassins to SK. Who shouldn’t have been shown pictures of fissile material, let alone been given any. Failed foreign policy would look like helping the Chinese not only get their ICBM’s off the ground, but giving them our targeting technology to target and hit the West Coast. Thanks again Maddie and Willie.

The left has made it nearly impossible to get the bad guys and when we do, work harder to make sure that the rights of the guilty out weight the rights of the murdered victims, or those they would murder. Kerry wouldn’t vote for the death penalty for terrorist. The courts actually let one terrorist go and we had to kill him in Afghanistan when he rejoined his old group of happy campers. How do we win the war on terrorism, the NK and Iran problems? Find out what Maddie, Willie, and Jimmy would do and do the opposite. What would Kerry do, hire the same bunch of nut hatches that have us in the problems we have today.

80% to 90% of Iraq is free enough to soon hold elections. The Iraqis are building their security forces and infrastructure. Long ago we were told that the terrorists would be stepping up the acts of terror for the election cycle, hence the name terrorist. Now the Dems want to imitate the French and surrender to a small vocal and violent minority, one fat bellied pig and a couple of Mullahs. The more dissent that the terrorists can cause in the ranks of the left, the more their emboldened, the more people die.

The Media proclaimed that it would give Kerry a “15%” margin boost. We can see how this is being attempted. 80% of the media is reporting only news that would help Kerry and hurt Bush. Who would Kerry turn to? When the GNP was at 5.7%, the French wanted to give us economic advise, their GNP was at 1.3%. They told Colin; “sure we’ll watch your back” at the UN, but apparently Saddam paid them more, ditto the Germans and Russians. His adviser list included Sandy "file" Burgler, and the rest of the insestuous brain trust is also from the last administration that helped and supported the only president convicted of perjury.

Remember the negotiations at the end of the Korean War? Imagine two sets of negotiators being worked over by such pertinent problems as what shape both tables should be and who gets the finger bowls. In the end it will boil down, not to China’s weight at the table, but China’s will to change regimes in NK. China is the only “friend” NK has. If China stops supporting NK, the Nutty Dictator will to meet his Dad, and status quo can be achieved in the near term. China won’t allow any political changes, and frankly are probably still miffed that we bombed their embassy.

The best post-debate comment I've seen came from Larry Kudlow, writing in NRO yesterday:

Time and again on the campaign trail Kerry argues for a grand international alliance to win the Iraq war. He repeated this in the debate. But in 1991 the U.S. headed a grand alliance of 36 nations that was fully backed by a United Nations resolution. And Kerry still opposed that war to liberate Kuwait. The U.N.-backed coalition included Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar. All the pieces were there, including the cause of justice. Still he voted against it. How, knowing this, can anyone believe Kerry when he says he will show us a better way to defeat our terrorist enemies today?

I guess passing the "global test" is about as easy as scoring a 1600 on the SAT, if you were drunk, peddling a unicycle, and the questions were written in encrypted Klingon.

I dont know what some of you were watching. My high school civics teacher had a better grasp of foreign affairs than Bush did. I thought Kerry was very good. His line about "outsourcing" the hunt for Bin Laden was the most memorable quote of the night.

I certainly don't doubt that your high school civics teacher put more emphasis than Bush on putting being liked over doing what needs to be done.

As to the notion that "outsourcing" the hunt for Bin Laden is somehow far worse than outsourcing decisionmaking regarding our national security, you need to read this military explanation of why "outsourcing" in Afghanistan enabled us to accomplish what others have been failing to do for 2500 years. As for Bin Laden, the preoccupation with him as an individual is an example of the law enforcement mindset which allowed 9/11 to happen. Whether he is hiding in Pakistan or in smithereens, he has been neutralized and rendered irrelevant.

"We would be in a much stronger position to deal with Iran if not for the catastrophe in Iraq."

Well, yes, of course we'd be in a stronger position if those damn bad guys didn't keep fighting back.

"By finding no wmd in Iraq after throwing the inspectors out, we will not be trusted by our traditional allies"

Who couldn't make much of a contribution even if they wanted to.

"and the occupation certainly limits our unilateral options with Iran."

Yes, because we'd be in a much better position if our closest bases were in Saudi Arabia rather than just across the border from Iran.

Or are you telling me that babysitting the Iraqis will be so critical that we won't reassign any soldiers from it even to stop Iran from building a nuke. That would be madness of the highest order - especially since a lot of the troublemakers in Iraq are coming from Iran.

"Theres a reason both candidates chose to speak rather extensively on NK, and didnt touch Iran. "

Well, hopefully it's because Bush isn't interested in advertising his plan to neutralize the Iranian mullahs in and giving them a year to prepare in advance the way we did with Iraq.

Jane,

I'm surprised you didn't mention Bush's ridiculous claim that "the A Q Khan network was brought to justice".

Khan went on Pakistani TV, said "oopsie!", was given a pat on the head by Musharraf, and was sent on his way.

If I'm not mistaken, Pakistan has shielded Khan and others involved from any questioning by the US, or by the IAEA.

WTF?

"As to the notion that "outsourcing" the hunt for Bin Laden is somehow far worse than outsourcing decisionmaking regarding our national security"

But that's exactly what Bush wants to do by putting our relations with North Korea in the hands of the Chinese.

Remember the Chinese? Those people who are always trying to get our nuclear secrets? The people who captured our reconnaissance plane?

You'd think they were the Brits the way Bush wants to rely on them to arrange for our security.

Jon_H:

While (I think) Jane identifies as an independent, has said that it is inaccurate to believe that she is "relieved that the Republicans are pulling ahead," and that she has "no current plans to vote for George W. Bush," it is sometimes more efficient to think of her as a Republican and a Bush supporter.

But that's exactly what Bush wants to do by putting our relations with North Korea in the hands of the Chinese.

Is that really outsourcing decisionmaking, or is it trying to bring the influence of a powerful neighboring country to bear on North Korea? It sounds more like the latter to me. I suppose if none of the countries in the region are willing to get involved, the US will go it alone.

Despite all of the criticism, unilateralism has always been a last resort for this administration. I seem to recall a lot of time and effort spent trying to get the UN on board with the Iraq invasion. Also, a coalition was assembled, despite the fact that it wasn't really needed from a military standpoint.

GWB is playing chess and all a'ya all are playing checkers.
Sit back and watch a master at work and the moves will become apparent to some of you reasonably quickly, and most of you eventually and I am referring to ALL of you including our own dear Jane.

First, Kerry isnt a leftist. Hes a decorated vet, former prosecuter, and not only embraced Clintons balanced budget, pay as you go philosiphy, but signed onto Reagans balanced budget proposal as well. Kerry is to the left on health care, he is also more of an internationalist than Bush, but the whole "most liberal voting record in the senate" is an attempt by the reps to polarize Kerry so he isn't percieved to be the centrist he actually is.

Lets get one thing straight, Bush didnt just have an off night, hes so damn stupid he cant even take questions from the media, even when the questions are scripted. The debate wasnt just an off day or an isolated incident, it was a continuation of the stupidity started at jrs birth. If a dem President had used words(?) like "misunderestimate", "Grecians", etc, the reps would have killed him with it. I guess Putin doesnt have such purtty eyes anymore, either. Somewhere in Indiana Thursday night, Dan Quail watched this debate and laughed his ass off. Not only do I consider my high school civics teacher smarter than Bush, I think just about ALL OF YOU are smarter than Bush.

Kerry isnt talking about surrendering in Iraq, hes speaking of winning. Unlike the moron that started this war over wmd, Kerry doesnt have to now form a democracy in Iraq to in some way validate this massive mistake of a war. There is no way democracy will work in Iraq, and one of the most powerful moments of the debate came when Kerry quoted Bush sr on the fact that the occupation of Iraq would result in a bitter bloodbath, WITH NO EXIT STRATEGY. As President, Kerry can allow whatever faction of Iraqis is powerful enough to stabalize country to win the vote, while helping to train Iraqi forces, then declare victory and give the Iraqis their country back. We have accomplished nothing in Afganistan either. The Talaban are back and alligned with the narco-warlords. Poppy production is up %500. Terrorists play hide and seek on the border with Pakistan, and Karzai is nothing more than a figurehead.

Enough with the blame Clinton bs. When 911 occurred, there wasnt even a terrorism policy in place, 20% into jrs term, and now you want to sell the reps as great terror warriors? After 911, Bush was stupid enough to single out Iran and NK in the "axis of evil" speech, WITH NO PLAN ON HOW TO DEAL WITH EITHER COUNTRY. So both those countries have accelerated there nuke programs, Irans on the verge of nukes, NK has added 6-8 nukes, and the only thing Bush has to say is more multilateral talks with NK, when they have yet to accomplish a single thing. We are so undermanned in Iraq that we cant stop terrorists from crossing the border from Iran, but we have enough soldiers to invade and locate the nukes in Iran? The latest intell on the Iranian nuke program is that they went to school on Israels destruction of the Iraq nuke facility, and we arent sure were anything is located.

The biggest lie Bush told in the debate is that A Khan was brought to justice. Kahn is the single greatest source of nuke proliferation in the world. Kahn sold nuke tech to both Iran and NK. Mushariff pardoned him, and told him dont do it again, and thats justice? Mushariff also told the UN there would be no prosecution of Kahn, despite the fact the UN has jurisdiction on nuke proliferation issues. Then theres the Bush lie, "He saw the exact same intelligence as me." Sens Graham and Biden both stated the NSA intell, the "new" intell from the CIA in the PDBs, and everything about Iraq Wolfie filtered out werent available to the Congress.

I see no reason to think Bush will do better next debate. His success in previous debates against Richards and Gore were only because of low expectations and having no record to defend. Kerry suffered in Sept because the timing of the DNC convention left him no voice to offset the Swifty errors. But now that the public sees Bush and Kerry side by side in the debates, Kerry has proven so superior its funny to watch the rep spin machine flail around grasping at straws.

I keep seeing people pointing out the thing about Poland...but Bush was wrong. While Poland did join us in Iraq later they were not part of the initial operations which is quite clearly what Kerry stated. The opening of the sentence in question was "When we first went in...".

Bush is hardly stupid. He does seem to have performance anxiety when he is speaking in public. People should not consider public speaking ability to be a sign of intelligence. Otherwise, one would have to assume that all actors and actresses are intelligent. We know that's not true, and that many of them are ditzes even though they sound smooth.

Polish Special Forces took part in the war.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/653hsdpu.asp

ATM, you don't seem to understand as I am beginning to, that since President Bush is not a member of any minority by race, gender, ethnicity, or handicap, according to liberal political correctness, we are allowed to point and laugh at him all we want.

ATM:

Bush is an idiot. He's probably smarter than the guy he plays on TV, but then he'd almost have to be. No one's saying that anyone who speaks well off the cuff is necessarily bright; we're saying that being smart enough to be able to string two full English sentences together is prerequisite for the Presidency.

I don't claim to know if he's always been this stupid, or if what we've got now is a result of his drunk years. But he's an idiot.

I don't claim to know if he's always been this stupid, or if what we've got now is a result of his drunk years. But he's an idiot.

And it's soooo painful to watch his genius candidate losing to the "idiot", Dim just can't restrain himself.

Guess what, Dim? Your boy's gonna lose. Gonna lose big. Get used to it, and wipe the spittle off your keyboard before it shorts out.

Oh, and Begbee...are you still here?

No one's saying that anyone who speaks well off the cuff is necessarily bright; we're saying that being smart enough to be able to string two full English sentences together is prerequisite for the Presidency.

Sneaky, Tim, but not sneaky enough. Subject that bit of spin to the horrors of centripital accelleration, and it unravels to "No one is saying that eloquence is evidence of intelligence...but ineloquence is clearly evidence of no intelligence!"

Of course, you have all the time necessary to preview and revise your posts, just to make sure that at least two of your English sentences are strung together properly, so for all I know you're also an idiot, albeit cleverly disguised by the exploitation of second chances.

I am suggesting that Bush is far more capable of stringing two sentences together when he is talking in private then when he is in the artificial world of public speaking. I haven't really heard anyone complain about his speech in private. I don't think he could have gotten into public office without the confidence of those around him. I also do recall reading about Tony Blair saying that Bush is far more articulate in private.

I don't think public articulateness is a measure of intelligence. An example I have is a very smart professor in my molecular genetics department who stammered and often had difficulties putting two sentences together that would convey his thoughts when speaking in public, but would speak more clearly and be more understandable in private conversations. I myself am quite prone to making syntactic and verbal gaffes when speaking in front of a group. I am fairly confident that I am quite a bit smarter than either of the two major candidates in this election.

It would be nice to have a president who is an articulate, confident, and inspiring public speaker, but I would prefer to have someone with convictions I agree with. In my book articulateness is truly a superficial characteristic of a candidate.

Anony:

If I were running for President on the basis of my comments, I'd understand your point; for the record, I am not John Kerry. If Bush can't memorize a prepared script for a debate he's known was coming for, oh, ever - well, insert epithet here. He's got a staff of hundreds - he can't figure out roughly what would be asked and have prepped answers to them? He's a moron. Or worse, he just doesn't think he should have to explain himself to the public.

More to the point, you clearly haven't been reading my posts very carefully; I drop (and occasionally add) words all the time. But, I hope, I don't sound like someone who just failed an ESL test.

ATM:

Public speaking is a basic part of a President's job; if you are to be responsible to the people, you need to be able to articulate what the hell you're doing. If he can't do it, he should get another job. If your molecular biology professor worked in an area in which his ability to coherently explain things to large groups (like the nation) was an issue, then I'd suggest he get another job. But he probably owes his job to his lab skills; public speaking is not a major part of the equation.

Again, I'm astounded by the fact that Republicans have apparently turned into self-esteem loving hippies. I'm sorry your boy isn't minimally competent, but I don't think we should give him the job just to be nice.

What's up with this bullshit about self-esteem? We criticize Bush for his inarticulateness at times. We would rather have a more articulate president. But we also recognize that the alternative choice is not palatable policywise. There were Democrats who might have been palatable, but they could not make it through the primaries.

Besides I don't think Bush is so inarticulate so as to not be able to get his point across. Otherwise a lot of people wouldn't be thinking that Bush won on substance and Kerry won on style, including many liberals. The fact of the matter is that the presidency is not about being the best debater, since debating skills are pretty much only of use during the campaign debates. And frankly it doesn't matter how well you present bad/foolish policies as Kerry is doing, they are still bad and foolish. And it doesn't matter how well you present your claim that you can do things better because actually doing something is much more difficult in the real world because your opponents are rarely being cooperative. The Iranians have already shot down Kerry's nuclear fuel idea.

The simple fact is that Bush's democracy promotion idea is the correct one, the only one that will guarantee are long term security. We will never be able to trust a totalitarian regime whether they be Islamist or Facist. We will have to contain those countries forever, and in the process expose ourselves to a second front opened by terrorists. Furthermore given the price we have paid for the containment of Iraq, changing course to regime change was the correct idea.

ATM,

>>>The simple fact is that Bush's democracy promotion idea is the correct one, the only one that will guarantee are long term security. We will never be able to trust a totalitarian regime whether they be Islamist or Facist.

Number 1, the Bush Administration is currently in bed with the Saudi Royal family, which is a clear example of an oppressive regime. Number 2, China, who's supposed to be our bargaining proxy with North Korea is a COMMUNIST nation that the US has billions in trade deficits to. Number 3, be careful what you wish for, because a democracy is supposed to mean that the PEOPLE decide how the nation work. Exactly what, besides alleged CIA influence peddling, prevents any Islamic country from voting in an Islamic theocracy? Or worse?
--Cobra

Blahh, aha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!! jr speaks well in private? Who here has had these intimate discussions with jr? Its the audience that scares him? Did you see the 1 on 1 interview with Orielly? jr is to stupid to manage a car wash, let alone a country. I guess you all think Arbusto, Harken, the Texas Rangers, and every other private company hes managed failed because of how "privately" smart jr is. Kerry towers over Bush, and its only going to be worse next debate.

Begbee,

These folks are beyond reason. Dubya could've gargled with grape Kool-Aid for 90 minutes and the bloggers here would praise his performance.

ATM:

1. "There were Democrats who might have been palatable, but they could not make it through the primaries." Please, dear Gawd, tell me you're not talking about Lieberman. He is horrible - he's like Bush without the smirking frat-boy charm.

2. "[A] lot of people wouldn't be thinking that Bush won on substance ... including many liberals." I know of no Dems or liberals who think that Bush won on substance. This may be a labeling problem; if you know people who think that Bush won on substance, they are neither Dems nor liberals, no matter what they told you.

3. "I don't think Bush is so inarticulate so as to not be able to get his point across." Uh, yeah he is. He can't (and hasn't) speak with any depth about any of his policies. Any idiot can get up and say, "I'm for Truth and Justice"'; the point is to have the ability to speak to the details in the ensuing sentences.

That's not really the sum, or even the base, concern that most have with Bush's lack of eloquence. The base concern is that it reflects an inability to think clearly or with any depth about anything. If the only words you know are "good," "bad," "angry," and "smash," you'll be hard pressed to understand the world in any way that isn't black & white, or develop any responses that aren't emotional and completely dependent on force.

4. "Bush's democracy promotion idea is the correct one…." No one, least of all Dems, thinks democracy promotion is a bad idea. The question is about (a) how necessary it is to achieve it in the short term, and (b) what are the best tactics to achieving it. I'm one for constructive engagement with the Chinese - I don't get why that wouldn't work, to varying degrees, with the ME. If we're going to use force, let's do it either silently, or (as in Afghanistan) when it's well justified by something other than fevered nightmares cooked up by Dr. Rice, et. al.

5. "We will have to contain those countries forever, and in the process expose ourselves to a second front opened by terrorists." Nothing lasts forever. Containment worked pretty well with Communism; is there a reason to fear Islamic states more? I doubt it.

6. "Given the price we have paid for the containment of Iraq, changing course to regime change was the correct idea." You mean the eight years of peace and prosperity that were the Clinton era? Yeah, that sucked.

Republicans need to learn to live with risk; yes, life can be scary, but that doesn't mean it's OK to go nuts in response.

If I were running for President on the basis of my comments, I'd understand your point; for the record, I am not John Kerry.

Too bad. All that "my opponent is a moron" stuff would bring refreshing directness to the debate.

If Bush can't memorize a prepared script for a debate he's known was coming for, oh, ever - well, insert epithet here.

You mean, some people aren't good public speakers? No. No! NOOOOO!

He's got a staff of hundreds - he can't figure out roughly what would be asked and have prepped answers to them? He's a moron. Or worse, he just doesn't think he should have to explain himself to the public.

What is it they say about 'assume,' again?

More to the point, you clearly haven't been reading my posts very carefully; I drop (and occasionally add) words all the time.

So are you saying that you also are a moron, or that you're an evil genius deliberately maintaining plausible deniability?

But, I hope, I don't sound like someone who just failed an ESL test.

You don't 'sound' like anything at all, since AFAIK I've never heard you speak. The point stands: you've got as much time as you need to bring your thoughts together in a discussion like this, whereas some people simply aren't good public speakers.

I dont agree at all with the notion that stage fright is the source of jrs language problems. You dont suddenly call Greeks Grecians if you understand that Greeks come from Greece. He butchers language and is at times incoherant in his recent interview with Orielly, and that was one on one. You might not like Kerrys Senate record, but its alot better than jrs multitude of private sector bankruptcies.

SCMT I agree with most of what you say. I dont think that the Koran allows for democracy. Islams view of women, the barberic penaltys of Islamic justice, refusal to grant nonmuslims full citizeinship, etc makes a western style democracy impossible in the Islamic world. I know some will point to Turkey as a democracy, but most experts agree that Turkey really just has the most liberal interpretation of the Korans laws. Imo as long as we are shackled to oil as a primary energy source a secular military despotism is the most favorable form of government to the US in the mideast countries. But neither candidate can say that out loud.

I wonder if anyone else caught the comment from Kerry about the U.S. intention to build 14 bases in Iraq? does anyone know if this is true, and who thinks it's a good idea? I hope (if it's true) that Iraqi people see it as a Germany/Japan/S.Korea type thing rather than an Isreali-Palestinian type thing.

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