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I usually don't watch debates, because I can't, because I become enraged. But I watched the one tonight for some reason. Favorite moments:
Uh . . . I'm never wrong. Okay, the fact that Bush refused to name one thing he had done wrong in four years as president? Hilarious. Kerry missed a huge opportunity to kick him in the ass for that. That's ridiculous. Should have declined to do the whole Iraq thing in the same terms as last time, and instead just said, "This is how you get into unending messes that drag on forever that you can't fix -- it's when you refuse to admit you've ever been wrong about anything. Being principled is a virtue; being obstinate is not." Kerry dropped the ball, I thought, in falling for Bush's insistence on just rearguing Iraq. Also, Bush totally insulted the woman who asked the question. "You're REALLY bitching about Iraq!" No. She's trying to figure out whether you have the sense to learn from anything you've ever done wrong, and . . . she's not going to like the answer.
Kerry can't remember the words "spinal cord injury." Sad. Ironic. Funny. Wickedly amusing. I'm going to hell.
Bush uses the word, "internets." Dude. Seriously. It's like having a president who doesn't know what a "Mexico" is. Good freaking holy mother of Mozilla. He can't know the word "internet"? I'm not asking him to stop pronouncing "nuclear" like Dan Quayle did, I'm just asking him to know the word INTERNET.
Bush bravely comes out against the Dred Scott decision. Boy. I guess those people who were afraid he was weak on civil rights will feel a lot better now.
Bush calls Kerry "Kennedy." Good one.
Bush accidentally makes Kerry's point for him. Kerry was like, "They consider GW himself to be a small business because he got $84 from a timber company." And Bush was snorting, all, "I own a timber company?" NO, idiot. That's Kerry's point. You DON'T. But you're counting yourself as if you do. Get it? You're clueless AND you're using an unfair definition of a small business! Get . . . it . . . now? I just don't think Bush understood what Kerry was saying, even.
"Are too! Are too!" So Bush goes after Kerry for not signing the partial-birth abortion ban. And Kerry says, "I didn't sign it because it didn't include an exception for the life and health of the mother." And Bush yells back, "You can't hide! You didn't sign it!" Dude. Calm down. He just explained why he didn't sign it. If you want to win the point, go back to why he should have signed the bill even without the exception in it. I would have thought that his preparers would have set him up with something to say besides, "Didn't sign it! Didn't sign it!"
"OGBYNs." I know, John. Women are really confusing with all their girl parts, but please . . . get that one right, okay?
Again with Poland. After it becomes a joke on The Daily Show, you really have to watch out for that.
"I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons." Yep. He was really hoping that there would be a lot of anthrax and smallpox and nukes over there. Wouldn't you have felt better knowing there were large stores of that stuff in Iraq that might have been handed around for years to whomever had ten bucks and a Budweiser?
All in all, an entertaining debate. I can't judge, because I genuinely think Bush is so goofy that I can't even take him seriously. He never has any idea what he's talking about, and as I said, I can't have a serious discussion with anyone who could have a four-year term as president and have not one single identifiable regret. Good Lord. Name someone you appointed to an obscure commission or something. Say you wouldn't have flipped off the entire world. Say you would have served something else at one of the state dinners. You can't just refuse to answer that question. Like I said, that could have been an absolute home run for Kerry, and he let him up off the mat, which frustrates me.
This is the second time I've seen Bush asked what mistakes he's made, and the second time he's refused to answer the question. Last time, he said he was sure he had made some, but doggone if he could remember any. I think you missed a moment, too. At the end of the debate, he was talking about how Kerry wouldn't have gone into Iraq, "and the world would have been better off". This is what happens when you talk in pre-packaged soundbites, Georgie. If they're too similar, you start to get them confused.
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at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]Hee! He really said OGBYNs? That is hysterical. And so inexcusable, in fact, that when I tried to type it incorrectly, my fingers would not let me. They typed OBGYNs, because they know that instinctively!!
And I'm guessing Bush doesn't watch The Daily Show? But did he seriously mention Poland again?
(I'm at work tonight so I only got to hear bits and pieces; that and Omar's hysterical recap -- and now you -- are all I have to go by.)
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]After the internets thing my husband and I just looked at each other like "Did he really just say that?" And then at every mention of the internet thereafter my husband said "Internet - Which one?" So that's gonna be around for awhile - so thanks for that Shrub.
Also, I'm sure it's a coincidence but I put my 2 yr old daughter to bed last night after the debate and as is her custom, she talked herself to sleep. This is what I heard on the monitor "did not - did too - did not"
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]Spazmo, that link laid me out like a conk to the noggin with a clue-by-four. The Q and A is fabbleous. There's also a photo up now that begs the question: "Got wood?"
Oh yes, I am so blogging this.
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]I thought the timber company thing was just a clever rhetorical device, too, but it turns out that Kerry is actually a rippin' quickdraw with the obscure facts from Bush's tax info. In 2001, Bush claimed $84 of income from his part interest ownership in a LSTF LLC, a limited-liability company organized "for the purpose of the production of trees for commercial sales."
See more at http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@docID=275.html
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]Yeah, no, I got it about the timber company. I knew it was a real thing. That was Kerry's point. Bush has a timber company that gives him $84, and under his small business definition, that makes him a small business owner. But he's not. That was Kerry's point.
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]Ah, my apologies...that was a totally lame misread of that line in your original post.
If I were going to toss Bush one, small bone of benefit of the doubt, I'd say he has brilliant campaign people. Seriously, given the spin about how "well" Bush did, I can't help but think they took a huge gamble in the first debate (fueled by his then-lead in polls) and prepped him to do poorly. All he had to do here was not suck, and the 50th percentile claps their hands to say how he knocked it out of the park.
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]Eek, the Dred Scott reference apparently was not a random bizarre reference, it was a coded promise to right-to-lifers to try to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, according to Salon. The idea, I guess, is that the supporters get it and that everyone who isn't a die-hard supporter will just think, "huh, weird." Creepy.
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]*Thank you* for noticing the Kennedy thing—I was sitting there smacking my boyfriend, all "did you HEAR that?" and he just mumbled and went back to sleep. Sigh. And I haven't seen it called out anywhere else. I was desperate for Kerry to begin his reply with "Well, to begin with my name is John KERRY..."
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]I was thrilled to see this entry - my husband and I spent the entire time watching the debate theorizing on what you would say if you were to do a debate recap.
I have my absentee ballot, so I'm off to get it notarized tomorrow and sent off to the States. (Don't get excited; with such a large contingent of Canadians pro-Kerry, the vote counters will probably throw it in the trash without reading it.)
My favorite new song begins: "Here's 3 words to cheer you up / here's 3 words to cheer you up / here's 3 words to cheer you uuuuuuuup: Former President Bush!"
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]ok, so I got dragged into this... since no one here actually is voting for a "red" state, and I'l recovered from a long weekend in Hot-lanta.
Bush totally gaffed on the "internets" thing, that's O-fer-2 for the cyber-speak for the incumbents.
Kerry is beyond wrong for the partial birth action thing... and I haven't found the statistics on how many D & X procedures are done to save the mom's life, so I'll reserve the full-strength "hammer of reason" untill I have that info cleared up. Keryr just divided his camp somewhat, and it lends some evidence to his "I'll ride the fence for votes" claims by the GOP.
As for the "what mistakes have you made".... that's a setup line the GOP posse has seen coming: Anything he says is fodder and sound-bite material for Begala/Carville's machine. Do you think George Soros and the Big Fat White Man wouldn't have a new mockumentory film in a week after a Bush answer of :"well, Iraq could have gone better after we disposed of Saddam's killing machine.."
the "Kennedy" thing is actually funny, since I think the Last Kennedy (you know the one... he doesn't drive so good after a few cocktails) was prob tickled to hear his name in the debate....
I laughed the same amount as when Kerry got caught up on "spinal-cord" injuries
Coded Promise ? well aren't we conspiricy theorists...
I think it's a message that we don't want another Bader-Ginsburg (ex-ACLU head pimp) sitting on the bench legislating like the 9th circuit.
I don't think another Scalia or Rehquist will be accepted with the Senate as evenly populated as it is...
I also own a "wood company" (it's the Y-chromosome...) WTF was that about.... "hey, Bush has more money than you think!!" he might as well have said that Bush made money mowing lawns in the summer, since most of the viewing public did not get the importance and connection with the statement
I wonder if the next debate will address him and the lil'French wife's finances next... THAT could get touchy
ok, there.. a little chlorine in the pool here... I'm sure I'll get blasted for being an ingoramus, but I'm not going to be able to debate with Linda in-person at the HS reunion so I have to have my fun here for all y'all to enjoy!!
PB
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]Dude. The Dred Scott thing is a coded reference to Roe. That's not tin-foil-hat stuff; that's fact. There's absolutely NO REASON he would bring up that case otherwise. If he just wanted to make general reference to legislating from the bench, there were other ways. This was about signaling on Roe. It doesn't make him evil, particularly if you don't like Roe to begin with, but people ought to understand it for what it was.
As for refusal to admit to any mistakes, I absolutely disagree that any admission of having ever done anything wrong would have looked worse than what he did, which was avoid the question and act like an arrogant nimrod.
If Kerry's wrong to want an exception for saving the mother's life in a bill to outlaw D&X, then that's what Bush should have said; that's my point. It's not an answer to just say, "Didn't sign it."
And . . . Ted Kennedy jokes? About drunk driving? Man, y'all are scratching the bottom of the barrel looking for material. The Dead Sea Scrolls aren't as old as that shit. At least get some new material.
And "lil French wife" is just plain beneath you.
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]Somone pass the bactine... I just got scraped hard...
:)
yeah, I see your point on the Roe allusion, and yes, bush kind of "Nyah Nyah-ed" on the voting issue for the abortion bill. He missed the "higher road" approach there for sure
I guess this answer to the question could have been handled by saying " I'm like everyone else out there, I do what is best, but may not always get the best out of what I do..." and then fight spin with spin... but I know his GOP handlers (yes, Bush and Kerry have handlers like they are a side show at the petting zoo) did not want him to provide a foothold here for the next Live with Larry King episode, or Katie Couric's morning sound bite...
Why ask him the question ? if everyone knows that he's made mistakes (every president and person has).... why on a national stage do you want a self-depricating dissertation ? It looks a little like a set-up.
If you've got a suggestion for the Prez's answer that is Begala-proof and doesn't sound like Hannity ... I'd like it better than Bush's answer for sure. :)
I had to toss in a partisan jab at Kennedy, and THK as well... it wouldn't be politics as usual without it.
(dead sea scrolls... that's nice.... I figured I get something dropped on me from the screenplay of 8-mile and the club-battle scenes... so I think I got off easy) Mad-props on the dissin' skillz!! :)
I'll raise a new one then, and I alluded to it talking about THK.... is how the Kerrys make that much money and still have an effective tax rate that is less than half of mine. They aren't going to be taxed at all if "the rich" get taxed more, but that's how both Kerry's talk and act. ("We don't need a tax cut Mr. President...")
He is so "I'm like the common man" in his words, but dude is as uptown as they get... I'm more blue-collar than this guy, and I'm a white guy from suburban Delaware with private school, private college, that played lacrosse and drove a Volvo.
I just don't believe him when he says he's got machinists and farmers and waitstaff's best interests in mind.... if the entire election came down to that (which it isn't for me) then I just can't believe his jibber-jabber coming from the richest guy a presidential race has ever seen.
plus I want Kerry to come out and say "Yes, I am going to raise taxes on the supervisors at your jobs, but I promise it won't hurt you at all"
Bush's tax program is not equitable either, but I don't like the prospect of what is "proposed to occur" in tax land.
IN General, Bush needs to quit the veiled "shout-outs" in his answers, and Kerry, well he can just keep on doing what he's doing I guess... I'm not sold that he has very many new ideas, other than tax adjustments and using the Jedi-mind trick on the EU to come send troops.
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]OK, I have to throw my two cents in here:
First, I hate to disillusion anyone, but ALL the questions asked in these things are set-ups. The person asking always roughly knows the answer, and is throwing their favorite candidate a bone (or trying to screw the opponent)
Second, while the poor almost tearful-looking girl who asked about abortion (set-up for Bush!) was certainly heartfelt in her question, there is nothing I can't stand more than people asking for guarantees that their taxes won't be used for anything they don't like. HELLO? Every one of us pays for MANY things we disagree with, both on a secular and non-secular basis and why this particular group seems to assume they should be above this is beyond me. This is definitely my pet peeve as far as debate questions go, and I've heard it before at the local and national level.
So there are my two cents about the debate, which I also watched in spite of my usual boycott tendencies. We'll see about tomorrow...
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
[ link ]Amen, sister. (Literally.)
I agree about the money-for-things-you-don't-like thing. I can think of a lot of people who are morally opposed to having their money spent by John Ashcroft to harass librarians, but I don't remember anyone offering me the option of a checkbox where I get to say, "Please don't spend my tax dollars for that." And I think there's a lot of money being spent on a war right now, too, right? Yeah, I'm almost certain of it.
at 10:02 PM on 10.08.04
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