Politics: debates

this dem is pretty happy about how the debate went.

irregardless of content, kerry outspoke, outstood (bush just looked so AWKWARD while Kerry spoke--Kerry has at least mastered the art of standing still and smiling), outgrammared ("what a commander in chiefs does..."), and out-completedsentences his opponent. Bush's entire tone changed from his responses to questions compared to his final statement, which just felt weird. Kerry maintained the same tone, the same poise throughout. Kerry simply looked and sounded the part of president. There are a few points Kerry could have hammered home a little stronger, but overall, no major complaints.

In Bush's defense, he certainly didn't come out bad. But the country knows what Bush thinks. They've seen it for four years. The challenger is by definition more enigmatic. So I think this boils down to one thing: if you think the Iraq war is going badly, Kerry made a pretty good case that he's the guy to fix it; if you think Iraq is going swell, then Bush is your man. Seems like a pretty fair assessment to me. Kerry had much more to gain in this debate, since this is sort of a home-game for Bush. Foreign policy is ALWAYS supposed to be a Republican strong-point. And if you don't win game one on your home court, that can come back to haunt you.

Although, how stupid did Bush seem when he started talking about fighting people who attacked us referring to the Iraq war? That was the only major flub either way. Didn't really change anything. But it sure does give Dems fuel for our "this president is a moron" jokes.

Bed time. If I can sleep after being riled up for two hours. I especially loved how CNN let some Kerry bashing going on for a while, but conveniently the Dem who was supposed to counter the bitch who was whining about Kerry couldn't be shown for technical problems. Thanks CNN, for that fair-and-balanced assessment. I bet Media Matters will have a say on this by the morning.

Update: Unlike me, who was too tired to do anything but gut react to this thing last night, Bo blogs intelligently about both candidates' lack of vision in foreign policy.