Senator Kerry will be having the cedar-smoked salmon salad with toasted walnuts and Buffalo mozzarella; President Bush will have the pork chops.
****
update: Allah has a round-up of verdicts. My thoughts, sans metaphor: Kerry didn’t come across as condescending or egregiously blue bloodish (though we all know he is), and he was far more personable tonight than I’ve ever seen him. For Bush’s part, he seemed annoyed at times—but contrary to how some are reacting to Bush’s body language, I found his demeanor a strength. To me, it said, “I have a country to protect, and the man I’m standing next to won’t do it as well as me—though he’ll tell you what you want to hear. And I’m tired of listening to his carefully crafted bullshit about international alliances when it’s clear the international community is simply not going to step up to the plate.” Overall, I call it a draw: Kerry on points, perhaps; but Bush scored big on Kerry’s ”global test” remark.
update 2: well said.
…pretty much sums ‘em up.
Well, once again, Kerry articulated absolutely nothing. No ANSWERS! Just more bulls..t! Christ – is he insane – bilateral talks with North Korea!??!?!?
The “BUSH” wins again!
Just one more .. remember that line in “Tequila Sunrise” .. watching Kerry in the sideframes ..
“Is that a smile.. or your lips stuck to your teeth?” (or vise versa)
One of the worst lines EVER in a movie script .. but appropriate in this case.
Bush was great the first half, he seemed to run out of points or ability to counter the last third. Kerry did well most of the way. Of course, he totally contradicted what’s he has said before on almost everything (I have been consistent!), but those judging him solely on tonight would probably have a much higher opinion of Kerry than they would have if they have followed this thing closely. Which, let’s face it, is a lot of America.
There were so many set-ups for Bush to knock it out of the park, and he only connected on a few of them. As it is, he left Kerry alive (which the MSM will trumpet to the high heavens) for non-foreign topics. *shrug* My two cents, and you get change… we’ll see how it plays over the next couple of days.
is it just me, or did kerry say how can other nations give up their nuclear program if we don’t give up ours? Just currious.
Michelle
I couldn’t help but think that if Pres. Bush had been able to groove his delivery this thing would have been a slaughter. Sometimes he’s terrific (I saw him at a rally here in Phoenix a while back) and sometimes he just runs out of gas.
Maybe Karl Rove can cut a deal for the next 2 debates- the Republicans will agree to get rid of the traffic lights if Bush and Kerry can just hand each other notes.
Agreed, both overall and on what I think is your key point: Bush wasn’t peevish, he was pissed, but in a good way. He almost couldn’t have responded to the rain of bullshit comments while both still appearing polite and not getting buzzed out at the end of his comments. So he took it, and continued on.
The body language comments I’ve seen on TV are a pretty serious stretch, bordering on attempts at turning a hope into reality.
I’d like to know what the average deployed National Guardsman thought of:
Kerry: “…at a ropeline I ran into two returning soldiers…one Active and one Guard…”
John Kerry’s Greatest Hits from the ‘70’s and ‘80’s is back with “Nuclear Disarmament”. Maybe Leno will bring back the Dancing Itos to dance to Kerry’s wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, wrong campaign.
Oh, and John, Treblinka was a nazi death camp – not the KGB HQ, tool.
What a flaming moron.
Presidential Debate Synopsis:
Senator Kerry:”I simply detest the reprehensible tactics employed by this intellectual moron.”
President Bush: “Fuck you runnin’, Mr. Ed.”
Detailed analysis to follow…
Read the transcript of the debate. I think that is where Bush really stood out. In every substantive issue, Bush had a solid response while Kerry wandered off into shiny new inconsistent statements – contradicting himself only sentences later.
I agree that Bush won on substance, Robin. But this was a televised debate, and many people might have tuned out before Bush figured out a way to combat Kerry’s format ploy, which was to prevaricate consistently on the rebuttal.
And I think the impression that will be left helps Kerry, in that he seemed more personable and resolute than he actually is. However, I think the Dems will turn this into a loss immediately by trying to exploit Bush’s annoyance in an ad featuring cutaways from the debate. Because it’ll give the Bush people a chance to point out the reasons for Bush’s annoyance—Kerry’s mischaracterization of the Senate Intell Committee Report, his Halliburton smear, etc.
Disclaimer: Three bottles of wine between me, my wife and an undisclosed third person. (Okay, perhaps four bottles, but who’s counting?)
I could not help but think that W was rope-a-doping this entire gig. I was fairly screaming at Kerry’s bullshit and Bush held his cool.
I thing W’s gonna bring up some very uncomfortable, shall we say, reminiscence of Kerry’s own words the next time ‘round.
Either that or I’m orange. So which is it?
Believe it or not, I think that the most significant thing today was the Kerry manicure.
Think about it. Over time, this is going to come into conversation, and how is that going to play with the gender gap.
“is it just me, or did kerry say how can other nations give up their nuclear program if we don’t give up ours? Just currious.
Michelle”
Yes, he did, Michelle. In reference to development of bunker busting nuclear bombs. He adamently said that he would put a stop to that the first day he took office. He is true, if nothing else, to his disdain for national defense. God help us if he is elected. After all the death and blood in Iraq, he will not maintain a US Military presence in the ME once Iraq is stabalized. He clearly said we would pull out completely from the ME. Guess Iran won’t be too scared of us after that, will they?
cedar-smoked salmon salad:Hey there John boy…enjoy the salmon, because you just got tossed..
Elsewhere in Florida
pork chops: after all that teeth clenching, I bet you’re pretty hungry……hell, I would be..
What’s interesting is less how you’d score it at home is the extent to which each reached their target audience, and made their points.
Kerry is trying to trounce Bush, Bush only has to maintain his status quo.
They each have a different view of the US’s role in the world. Bush is as he as he’s always been (since 9/11), there is little doubt where he stands. The doubt is what Kerry proposes. Did he make it clear, and will the unconvinced buy into it? Don’t think so.
Kerry has a different view. Other than the abb crowd it’s difficult for Kerry to overcome that unless he’s convincingly more coherent–a detailed approach–and he wasn’t.
So two more, and fewer will be unconvinced after tonight.
Bush by 5 pts. in the popular vote.
Jeff, Excellent concise debate roundup. My impressions as I watch it, exactly.
Kerry: Blah blah blah blah blah blah
Bush: *cough*bullshit*cough*
Hmmm.
A few things.
1. Kerry actually advocated giving IRAN “nuclear fuel” as a test of their intentions!! So if Iran were to then enrich the uranium fuel and make bombs they’d what? Fail the test? WTF?
2. Lehrer handed Kerry a number of really biased attacks. Tell me that many of the questions on Iraq weren’t worded essentially “How would you save us from this bastard f**ktard President?”. Frankly if ANY Republican ever again used Lehrer as a moderator they should have their ass kicked. And the team that negotiated this debate are complete tools.
3. What was with Lehrer shaking hands with Kerry, but not Bush? Clinton’s “our moderator” at work again.
4. What is the “Global Test” that Kerry was running on about? Frankly that’s pretty bloody silly. I could make a few jokes about it, but it’s just too bizzare. What? **America** has to prove we’re good people? Like liberating 50 million people at the cost of thousands of casulaties and hundreds of billions of dollars doesn’t count?
The freaking GOP screws things up yet again. You’d think people would eventually learn from their mistakes. But no. Not the frigging GOP. I can hear it now, “Hey! Let’s get Lehrer to moderate. Yeah. That’s the ticket.”.
Mark this conservative utterly disgusted.
Kerry needed to sway all the undecideds and make inroads into previously committed voters.
I agree on the rope-a-dope, but only after going back and reading the transcript.
World Test, the return to Nuclear Freeze/multiculti anti-nuke dogma, and the contradiction between Iraq/unilateral bad (ignoring the “bribed and coerced”) and North Korea/unilateral good will all come back to haunt Kerry.
BTW, Bush’s two finest moments came when he corrected Kerry on the timeline and issues (enriched plutonium vice uranium) re North Korea and his explanation of why unilateral talks with the Norks would be a grave mistake.
I was also intrigued by Bush’s Dafur response. I would have liked to see him ask where the U.N. was on this question; who knew that the rainy season in the Sudan is on the president’s mind?
This debate was much more substantive than I had hoped for. And that does Mr. Kerry no good at all.
Can I have the cedar-smoked salmon salad to start, then the pork chops for the main course, please.
Wife test. The nonpartisan, I don’t pay attention to politics spouse. She watched a grand total of 10 to 15 minutes and started to complain that Survivor was delayed. She went upstairs to watch a Tivo’d ER.
Her impressions are; Bush isn’t a very good debater. Kerry seemed prepared. Ten minutes later after she was focused on other things her comments were again that Bush wasn’t very good in that setting but she doesn’t necessarily find Kerry’s positions to be stronger. When I asked her what she thought of Kerry’s position she admitted she didn’t know what it really was. She did know what Bush’s was.
I simply don’t believe the debate was that memorable and as such won’t really matter. Furthermore, Kerry’s opportunity to define his position on foreign policy was nebulous at best and rather thin.
I think politically interested conservatives see the debate as a bit of a let down for GW because if you were like me you were formulating your own rebuttles in your mind that Bush didn’t address. We didn’t get to hear about Kerry’s 20 year voting record on military support. We didn’t hear Bush immediately voice the irony of Kerry’s body armor blovations. We didn’t get to hear about Kerry’s attendance record to intelligence committee meetings and his expense cut proposal. I watched, wishing that GW had the oratory capabilities of Tony Blair. You can blaim Lehr for focusing on Bush’s policy and never addressing Kerry’s own history but Bush had plenty of opportunities to bring them up himself.
I didn’t mention it yesterday, but I think the format helped Kerry tremendously. I think the whole red light, timing thing worked to his advantage. If Kerry had been allowed to ramble on at indeterminable boring length, I think it would have helped Bush tremendously…every time Kerry opens his mouth his numbers drop. Why did the RNC try to limit him? As it was, he forced to stay concise and (mostly) on point.
Correction to my last:
I mistakenly quoted Kerry as saying “world test”. The correct quote is “global test”.
Please accept my apologies for imprecision. The substance of my post remains unchanged.
Election day is just 30 days away. Local Republicans need any time you could spare, as well as the enthusiasm you are showing here, to help President Bush.
There are all sorts of jobs, large and small, where you can contribute. Last weekend, and I will be doing this weekend also, I walked my local neighborhood contacting registered Republicans from a list provided by my local contact.
I just had to remind fellow Republican neighbors to be sure and vote in this important election, where to vote, and hand out a state party generated card that listed the party recommended candidates for local, state, and federal offices. It is the first time I had done anything like this and I am glad I did. I met like minded neighbors and new friends.
If you would prefer to write opinions for news outlets, etc, various help is needed. If you could contribute some time to help President Bush, just go to:
http://www.gop.com/GetActive
and enter your zipcode or state for your local contact information.
Altho Kerry nibbled daintily upon the Buffalo mozzarella, he had no doubt publicly ordered the Buffalo wings.
blah blah blah
blah blah
[note: I have edited the last two comments without reading them fully. I understand from the few lines that I did read that this is behavior expected of a stupid, close-minded, bigoted, proto-Nazi like me. Which, one wonders, then, why the commenter didn’t see this coming? – ed]