The Great (??) Debate

[chm2023]

Think Kerry came out the winner, as much due to Bush's poor performance as his own fairly strong one.

It's amazing to me that the leader of the free world can't talk intelligently for 90 minutes without resorting to sound bites. (One of the ubiquitious pundits nailed it: "Bush came to a 90 minute debate with 30 minutes of material".) If you want a really sobering experience, read the debate transcript and concentrate on Bush's responses to the questions on Russia and Iran.

This is what you get when you are surrounded exclusively by sychophants, don't read the newspapers and vet everyone who attends your campaign events--you become convinced of your own wisdom, coz gee, no-one ever challenges me! I think the unpleasant shock of being challenged is what accounted for his sour demeanor.

Most telling moment was when Bush replied to Kerry's list of serious security issues in the US--only 5% of containers inspected, chemical plants poorly guarded, cargo not inspected before being loaded on passenger planes, our ridiculous "borders"--and Kerry's comment that when he was president, he would address these issues. Bush: "I'd like to know how he's going to pay for all those things. There's a huge tax gap."

So Bush lowers taxes and therefore can't afford to make us secure--and admits to it. Some things are more important than tax cuts Georgie boy.

Funniest moment: Bush repeating that he "talks to foreign leaders on the phone all the time" in a bragging manner. Mother of God, you're the president of the United States, you were expecting to be put on hold?????

[Texas Ranger]

amazing how people see the same thing, and see it quite differently, hmmmn.

[fvc2020]

I guess we do things differently. I do however read the papers, I watch the news(both left and right sides)and I consider myself educated. I do think the President seemed alittle annoyed and frustrated. I think Kerry won, just because so many of the questions were slanted to make him look good. I was bored by midstream, and went and played with my computer. I however was offended that a possible President thinks we need approval from the World(France, Germany, and Russia)to protect our country. Strange to think we have to be a part of some type of Global Community and we have to answer to anyone. We are the largest country in the world and we should only have to answer to ourselves.


Also I thought Kerry seemed to be telling people that he thinks the President has done absoluting nothing in the last four years. As the President showed he has done much. Kerry seems to forget that we are at war, things change. He also seems to forget all the things he has done to stop the war. He voted against supplying our troops the way the should be. He has vetoed all weapons packages since he has been in office. He has vetoed all attempts to correct the inteligence community. He disavows the Patriot Act. He insults those countries helping fight the War on Terror. He seems to forget as well all the attempts to prevent this war. We did go the UN and ask them repeatly to enforce the requirements they placed on Iraq. They did nothing. We did get inspectors back in, but they were again not allowed to do their job. We did what the UN refused to do. Did we expect that Muslims would flock to Iraq to make sure they wouldn't allow the Iraqi to start over. Did we expect them to attack everything there that stood for peace and democracy? No. Kerry seemed to want us to go in and take severe action. If the President did that, he would have been called a child killer and disrespectful of the Islam religion. I could go on, but we all have hashed this out before.

The debate let us know where each one stood. I still stand with the President, who will not bow down to the Europeans or anyone else when it comes to the defense of the United States:)

Christina

[chm2023]

I guess we do things differently. I do however read the papers, I watch the news(both left and right sides)and I consider myself educated. I do think the President seemed alittle annoyed and frustrated. I think Kerry won, just because so many of the questions were slanted to make him look good. I was bored by midstream, and went and played with my computer. I however was offended that a possible President thinks we need approval from the World(France, Germany, and Russia)to protect our country. Strange to think we have to be a part of some type of Global Community and we have to answer to anyone. We are the largest country in the world and we should only have to answer to ourselves.


Also I thought Kerry seemed to be telling people that he thinks the President has done absoluting nothing in the last four years. As the President showed he has done much. Kerry seems to forget that we are at war, things change. He also seems to forget all the things he has done to stop the war. He voted against supplying our troops the way the should be. He has vetoed all weapons packages since he has been in office. He has vetoed all attempts to correct the inteligence community. He disavows the Patriot Act. He insults those countries helping fight the War on Terror. He seems to forget as well all the attempts to prevent this war. We did go the UN and ask them repeatly to enforce the requirements they placed on Iraq. They did nothing. We did get inspectors back in, but they were again not allowed to do their job. We did what the UN refused to do. Did we expect that Muslims would flock to Iraq to make sure they wouldn't allow the Iraqi to start over. Did we expect them to attack everything there that stood for peace and democracy? No. Kerry seemed to want us to go in and take severe action. If the President did that, he would have been called a child killer and disrespectful of the Islam religion. I could go on, but we all have hashed this out before.

The debate let us know where each one stood. I still stand with the President, who will not bow down to the Europeans or anyone else when it comes to the defense of the United States:)

Christina

Christina: kindly show me where Kerry said we need the approval of France, Germany and Russia to protect our country. And as to your statement, "did we expect that Muslims would ....." Yeah, a lot of us predicted that the radical Muslim elements, and increasingly the not so radical elements, would fiercely resist the US occupying Iraq. Bush preferred the cotton candy advice of the neo-cons who predicted our soldiers would be met with cheering crowds flinging flowers. How much more wrong can you be? Bush shrugs this off like it's a mulligan.

As to the rest, please. You're talking to adults with reasonably good critical thinking ability.

[shanbaum]

We did go the UN and ask them repeatly to enforce the requirements they placed on Iraq. They did nothing. We did get inspectors back in, but they were again not allowed to do their job. We did what the UN refused to do.

Actually, I was disappointed that Kerry failed to pick up on a similar comment made last night (perhaps three times) by the president - the fact is, we now know that the inspections regimes were very nearly completely successful in eliminating the prohibited weapons. Of course, Bush and Co. came into office "knowing" that the U.N. was ineffective, and little things like facts are unlikely to change their views, true believers that they are.

Of course, there's the possibility that the there really were WMD - that is, the inspections were ineffective, and now those WMD are... uh, well, we don't know where they are. Yes, I feel safer.

[Spexvet]

I guess we do things differently. I do however read the papers, I watch the news(both left and right sides)and I consider myself educated. I do think the President seemed alittle annoyed and frustrated. I think Kerry won, just because so many of the questions were slanted to make him look good.

Please explain that. Is it because all the questions made W say "uh....er....um.....mixed messages, can't lead"?

I was bored by midstream, and went and played with my computer. I however was offended that a possible President thinks we need approval from the World(France, Germany, and Russia)to protect our country. Strange to think we have to be a part of some type of Global Community and we have to answer to anyone. We are the largest country in the world and we should only have to answer to ourselves.

We didn't like that kind of arrogance when th USSR invaded Eastern Europe and Afghanisten, did we. Then they were the bad guys. Now, we can act that way because we're powerful? I see...

Also I thought Kerry seemed to be telling people that he thinks the President has done absoluting nothing in the last four years. As the President showed he has done much.

Yeah, mostly wrong.

[ziggy]

When it comes to the ability to speak Mr Kerry wins hands down. POTUS, like most of us southerners need more than 90-120 seconds to say anything! The point is who's message did you like the best? This doesnt bode well for the republican party to gain the undecided vote,, the Pres.sounded like he had a mouth full of marbles. I think for most of us on this board, we maid up our minds long ago,, I just hope this weeks meeting goes better(for those of us on the right that is).

[Jana Lewis]

Regardless of who "won" the debate, it didn't do much for the polls. Undecideds are still undecided! Gettin' ready for Cheny and Edwards.....we'll see!

[coda]

Christina, first I'm not picking on you, it's simply that you've made a number of fairly standard Republican statements in a single post allowing me a good venue for refutation. This isn't personal.

He voted against supplying our troops the way the should be. He has vetoed all weapons packages since he has been in office. He has vetoed all attempts to correct the inteligence community. He disavows the Patriot Act.
Christina

John Kerry voted for the 87 billion dollar package when it was going to be funded by rolling back the top bracket tax cuts. John Kerry voted against it when it was going to be funded by deficite spending. Which is the fiscally responsible (and incidentally conservative) approach? Bush supported further deficite spending.

Kerry hardly voted against "all weapons packages" since he was in office. In fact he was quite a hawk when it came to defense spending during the cold war. Like nearly all the Senate Republicans once the USSR disolved he voted for the largest roll back in defense spending (1991? not sure of the date).

Kerry hasn't voted against intelligence reform, in fact even the Bush administration hasn't claimed this.

He should disavow the Patriot act. We saw the first step of it's disassembly the other day when the 1st circuit of the US Appeals Court (one of the more conservative circuits) judged unconstitutional a particular wire tap procedure which doens't require court approval. The massive majority of the Patriot act will be eliminated over the next 5 years.

Did we expect that Muslims would flock to Iraq to make sure they wouldn't allow the Iraqi to start over. Did we expect them to attack everything there that stood for peace and democracy?
Christina

Yes, in fact many predicted that Iraq would, once the Saddam regime was removed, become a potential haven for Islamic extremists. There were a number of great analysis pieces one in particular stands out (I believe it was either in The Economist or one of the Jane's Defence publications) that essentially predicted the massive influx of terrorists into a chaotic Iraq in the hope of making a new Afganistan like haven for training etc.

The debate let us know where each one stood. I still stand with the President, who will not bow down to the Europeans or anyone else when it comes to the defense of the United States:)
Christina

I firmly believe in the right of any nation to preemptive strikes. I also believe that they have to be valid and justifiable. There have been a number of less justifiable preemptive attacks in the course of history. The USSR invading Afganistan. Vietnam invading Cambodia. Germany invading Czechoslovakia (prior to WWII). If we're not right and if we can't prove to our allies and the world in general that we're right then we risk become an outlaw state ourselves. At that point we run the risk of loosing all support in our war on terror (remember that more terrorists with designs on the US have been arrested in Europe by Europeans than the whole rest of the world by the US) something we simply can't afford. Bush didn't have his ducks in a row on the Iraq invasion (he may not have had any ducks at all, that has yet to be shown) and that's simply something we don't have the luxury of allowing again.

[chm2023]

Sunday NYT's has an extensive article re the now famous aluminum tubes. Bottom line: the administration stated for a fact what we now know were highly questionable evaluations by the CIA on this material. Most nuclear experts and the Dept of Energy weighed in on the side of the tubes being inappropriate for centrifuge construction. The point being that Bush, who never tires of stating he "trusts the 'Murican people", in fact did not trust them enough to tell them the truth on this matter--knowing the intelligence was very weak, his decision was to use what supported his doctrine of pre-emption, and ignore the rest.

Oh well, as Rummy has taken to saying, nothing's perfect.