Woo hoo!

[mattlistener]

Kerry wiped the floor with him!! He posed challenge after challenge that Bush couldn't answer, and Bush posed essentially only one challenge to Kerry, that he sends mixed messages -- which Kerry addressed with not only his standard replies, but more importantly by sending very consistent messages during the debate itself. Kerry took Bush to task for not securing loose nuclear material, for cutting funds for first responders, for the diplomatic failure of letting North Korea get the bomb, for committing the majority of our armed forces to Iraq while Al Quaeda was somewhere else, for using local warlords to go after a trapped Osama bin Laden when the most highly trained military in the world was right nearby, for retiring the general who before the invasion said they weren't prepared to win the peace, and more.

In answering a question about America's policy of pre-emptive attack, Bush said "The enemy attacked us first" -- demonstrating again his fundamental thinking that our invasion of Iraq was a counter-attack response to 9/11. He also actually said "Saddam Hussein" once when he was referring to "Osama bin Laden".

Bush was also very defensive, even sounding whiny many times. Kerry din't sound defensive in response to the "flip-flopper" type attacks, he sounded angry and firm.

Ok, off to watch the Daily Show coverage!

Comments

[bitty.livejournal.com]

Jon Stewart is rockin'. I find his coverage much better than the debate itself :)

[laurens10.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think Kerry won by a landslide. Heck, I was watching MSNBC, and the Republican spin doctor couldn't even spin it enough to make it seem like Bush won. Of course, knowing politics, the actual debate may hide behind the shadow of the imaginary debate that the Republicans seem to think had taken place.

Bush's tone of voice was high pitched. He was flustered whenever he was strayed off the texts of his stump speeches. He was very defensive. He ended at least one point with the same upward tone someone might use to ask a question. He came across horribly if John Kerry was responding and the network camera would dare to show Bush's facial reactions. I'd like to think Bush being surrounded by people who agree with him has made him soft.

Kerry on the other hand sounded authoritarian and came across hard hitting. I wager that Kerry will get most of the soundbites because Bush essentially offered nothing new and stuck with his standard script. Of course, the danger of that is -- not everyone thinks so hard, and Bush may appear "consistent" due to repetition. But Kerry did an excellent job of being consistent, and everything I've seen that attempts to point the other direction has been flat out wrong. (John Stewart's comment to Guiliani about "Well, okay, maybe it was just my TV" was priceless.) One CNN.com reader responded in a forum saying that Kerry was "inconsistent" because he was talking about all this coalition building, and then he goes off saying that the US shouldn't have talks with N. Korea without China being there, so how about that! Um. Yeah.