I’ll have to admit that I started this presidential race as an Anybody-But-Bush man. I always thought that Kerry was a capable candidate, but I was always just hoping for some moment as defining as his 1971 stand against Vietnam. I wanted him to get away from his handlers and just speak from the heart and look presidential.
Boy, did the debate last night just do that for me, and judging by the polls, a large amount of the public. I watched the debate on C-SPAN, where the whole 90 minutes was a split-screen shot of the two candidates. You could watch Bush get that seven-minute-deer-in-the-headlights look, while Kerry looked at all times calm, focused, and presidential.
My favorite moment was this one:
KERRY: Well, first of all, I appreciate enormously the personal comments the president just made. And I share them with him. I think only if you’re doing this — and he’s done it more than I have in terms of the presidency — can you begin to get a sense of what it means to your families. And it’s tough. And so I acknowledge that his daughters — I’ve watched them.
KERRY: I’ve chuckled a few times at some of their comments.
(LAUGHTER)
And…
BUSH: I’m trying to put a leash on them.
(LAUGHTER)
KERRY: Well, I know. I’ve learned not to do that
I just sat in awe of how Bush could be so cavalier as to let slip a reference to leashes while the image of Pvt. Lynndie England holding a leashed prisoner of Abu Ghraib is one of the most enduring pictures of this war.
Kerry showed remarkable restraint in his response, when he could have so easily mentioned Abu Ghraib. As it was, it was still a wonderful slap-down.
Another fine moment:
KERRY: Now I believe there’s a better way to do this. You know, the president’s father did not go into Iraq, into Baghdad, beyond Basra. And the reason he didn’t is, he said — he wrote in his book — because there was no viable exit strategy. And he said our troops would be occupiers in a bitterly hostile land.
That’s exactly where we find ourselves today. There’s a sense of American occupation. The only building that was guarded when the troops when into Baghdad was the oil ministry. We didn’t guard the nuclear facilities.
What a wonderful way to put Bush in his place. In an instant, he becomes the petulant child who rebels against his daddy. You should have seen the look on Shrub’s face when this was spoken. You could see him turning red, even under the lights and make-up. I think this is the moment where Bush began to fall.
I’m amazed that anyone could think Bush won or tied that debate (and it looks like about 75% of America agrees with me). Bush stammered, struggled to make coherent sentences, left seconds of “dead air”, made all sorts of quizzical facial expressions and defiant gestures of body language. It was the perfect opportunity for Americans to compare them side-by-side and remember what an articulate president is like and show that the current emporer has no clothes.
Kerry hit it out of the park.
Bush tried with his time-tested sound-bites, but they just didn’t stick. After about sixty minutes, he seemed to run out of material. Here’s some of the thoughts from the Shrub. First of all, apparently war is hard work. Here’s a rundown of hard work, coming from the president who has spent more time on vacation than any other president, who was on vacation for almost month before 9/11, and who has had his whole life handed to him on the silver platter of daddy’s connections and rich Saudi oil buddies:
BUSH: In Iraq, no doubt about it, it’s tough. It’s hard work. It’s incredibly hard.
BUSH: It’s hard work.
BUSH: And now we’re fighting them now. And it’s hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it’s necessary work.
BUSH: The plan says we’ll train Iraqi soldiers so they can do the hard work, and we are.
BUSH: It is hard work. It is hard work to go from a tyranny to a democracy. It’s hard work to go from a place where people get their hands cut off, or executed, to a place where people are free.
BUSH: You know, it’s hard work to try to love her as best as I can, knowing full well that the decision I made caused her loved one to be in harm’s way.
BUSH: Yes, we’re getting the job done. It’s hard work. Everybody knows it’s hard work, because there’s a determined enemy that’s trying to defeat us.
BUSH: We’ve done a lot of hard work together over the last three and a half years. We’ve been challenged, and we’ve risen to those challenges. We’ve climbed the mighty mountain. I see the valley below, and it’s a valley of peace.
That last one scared me a bit, too, because of the whole Biblical overtone to it. Doesn’t he know that the whole Muslim world perceives this to be a religious crusade against Islam?
Secondly, apparently Kerry is no longer a “flip-flopper”, now he’s sending “mixed messages”:
BUSH: He [Allawi] doesn’t want U.S. leadership, however, to send mixed signals, to not stand with the Iraqi people.
BUSH: And I’m optimistic. See, I think you can be realistic and optimistic at the same time. I’m optimistic we’ll achieve — I know we won’t achieve if we send mixed signals. I know we’re not going to achieve our objective if we send mixed signals to our troops, our friends, the Iraqi citizens.
BUSH: I think that by speaking clearly and doing what we say and not sending mixed messages, it is less likely we’ll ever have to use troops.
BUSH: You cannot lead if you send mixed messages. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our troops. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our allies. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to the Iraqi citizens.
What was Kerry’s mixed message?
KERRY: Saddam Hussein is a threat. He needed to be disarmed. We needed to go to the U.N. The president needed the authority to use force in order to be able to get him to do something, because he never did it without the threat of force. But we didn’t need to rush to war without a plan to win the peace.
The beautiful thing is that this debate, the foreign policy debate, was supposed to be Bush’s strong point. Next we get a town-hall meeting (Bush forced to address a non-loyalty-oath audience) and a domestic policy debate. Not to mention the Cheney-Edwards debate, pitting the charming, handsome young trial lawyer who ate criminal CEO’s for lunch, versus the scary, sneering, criminal CEO.
I am so loving this. Kerry in a landslide!
