The first candidate to mention the Cardinals will earn my undying scorn.
9:11 - The Global Test! Apparently they told BushCo that he should yell. Kerry is looking more presidential again. You know, it's not the yelling it's BushCo's voice. Kerry is yelling too at times, but he has a deeper and therefore better voice. BushCo sounds shrill when he yells.
9:15 - BushCo: We're gonna make elections.
9:19 - Why doesn't Kerry mention the NYT report and the fact that the WH lied about the intelligence that Congress and everyone but the WH saw?
9:20 - I like that woman's shawl.
BushCo: I've made some decisions that have caused people to not understand the great values of this country.
9:22 - BushCo: 30 nations involved in Iraq. People love America!
9:23 - Kerry reminds BushCo of his promise to go to war with a viable exit strategy and with enough forces to get the job done.
My family is arguing whether a blink is a smirk. I call "blirk." And he shifts his jaw now when Kerry is challenging him - that's new!
9:24 - BushCo dares to say that he invaded Iraq as a last resort. I hope every one of the thousands of
dead on both sides haunt him to the grave.
9:27 - See - the jaw shift? They must have hypnotized him to sublimate the eye-rolling and grimacing into grinding his teeth.
9:28 - Gibson sure is stingy with the follow-ups.
9:29 - BushCo: I hear there's rumors on the internets. (about the draft)
9:30 - BushCo's Korea plan could not be more wrong.
BushCo says the days of the Soviet Union invading neighbors are over. I wouldn't be too sure.
BushCo: "Forget all this stuff about the draft!" Forget it!
9:33 - Oooh, BushCo runs over Gibson. He's gotta answer this!! Scream, scream, scream.
9:34 - Kerry: Mr. President, countries are leaving the coalition not joining it.
9:35 - Note to future town hall debate citizen questioners: Giant orange flowers on your shoulder distract
from your question.
9:36 - Kerry brings up the tax gap. "This president chose a tax cut for the wealthy over homeland security."
9:37 - BushCo: "If Iraq were to fail it would be a haven for terrorists and there would be money." Did he mean MANY? Boy, that's the Freudian slip of the night.
9:39 - BushCo: "I'm worried about our country." That can't be good. We ought to do something about that. Get new leadership or something.
9:40 - BushCo - drugs from Canada are going to kill ya'.
BushCo - "It looks like it's from Canada but it might be from a third world." A third world.
9:42 - Whoever thought to brief Kerry on the things BushCo said in this same hall four years ago was a genius.
I don't understand how anyone can think BushCo's drug plan is a good one. Kerry couldn't be any more clear on the topic.
9:43 - BushCo winks at the crowd. Slimy bastard.
9:45 - John Edwards is the author of the Patients Bill of Rights? I didn't know that. Kerry says we can pull his healthcare plan off the internet. BushCo scribbles furiously to remind himself to ask Kerry which of the internets should he pull it off?
9:47 - BushCo - Kerry is the most liberal senator "of all."
BushCo just can't stop sounding sarcastic and whiny. I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that BushCo is just making stuff up about Kerry's healthcare plan. That'll be fact checked. But Kerry takes care of it himself: "The president is just trying to scare people. Throwing labels around."
Jeebus, BushCo is a bully.
9:50 - When the question is bad for BushCo, he thanks the questioner. I guess they think that will help.
BushCo is spinning a complete fantasy economy. It must be hard to be Kerry - there's so much to tackle when BushCo talks. That must be the BushCo strategy - throw everything up against the wall and hope some of it sticks. And it's probably not a bad tactic with people listening who don't know much. This is why we need the debates fact checked hard.
9:54 - BushCo will cut the defecit by making sure Congress doesn't overspend. He means cutting WIC, Headstart, After School Programs etc...
Kerry is just laying out the math - how can he not be 25 points up in every poll?
9:55 - This guy has a Gwen Ifill question - look into the camera and say in simple language you won't raise taxes on the middle class ... And Kerry does it. Good for him. I probably wouldn't have.
Let's see Blinky McTwitch look straight into the camera.
9:57 - BushCo: "He's not credible! He's just not credible!"
BushCo is 0 for 3 on the stupid jokes. "We got battling green eyeshades." Gets a laugh when he stalls to use up time since he has NOTHING to say on the economy.
10:00 - Environmental question. BushCo has a plan to increase the wetlands by "three million." Our forests are "like tinderboxes." They're almost as scary as "terrists." Kill them all! BushCo: "I'm a good steward of the land." And then he lies and swaggers for twenty seconds.
10:02 - Kerry is proud of his support of welfare reform. Blech.
Kerry takes on BushCo's environmental record and BushCo's jaw shifts.
10:05 - Kerry loves Nikki - the woman with the pretty shawl and the question about why the world hates us. He keeps coming back to her to make his point about cooperation with other countries.
10:07 - Kerry ties becoming more competitive to an energy policy that pushes innovation and the creation of new jobs - and the funding of education to give people the knowledge they need to think our way out of the problem. It makes me cry to think how close he came to making that the centerpiece of his campaign and never did.
10:10 - No energy question. It's possible people just don't care or understand how important energy policy is.
10:11 - BushCo: "I don't think your rights are being watered down." But he owns a timber company he doesn't know about too so I wouldn't take his word for it. (I'm nervous that "Need some wood?" is going to be what the bobble-heads jump on in the post-debate spin shows.)
10:13 - Patriot Act discussion is unsatisfying. Kerry met a man who was held for 8 months without access to a lawyer. He doesn't have to reach for any strange examples of violated rights. We only have to remember the protesters at the RNC and how their rights were violated for hundreds of examples.
10:17 - According to BushCo, he's the first president to ever allow federal funding to destroy human life to create a stem cell. Mixed messages! He can't lead.
Ahhh - Kerry calls him on it!! Good for you, Senator. Contaminated by mouse cells??? Ick.
BushCo grappled with the decision to destroy more life. I wish he had that kind of consideration for the people he's killing in Iraq. (on both sides)
10:22 - Oh good, Kerry is mentioning Justice Potter Stewart - that'll get him votes. Isn't there a NASCAR driver with an opinion on the function of the judiciary?
10:24 - Kerry can't weasel on this abortion question. Federal funds will support abortion. Deal with it. Federal funds should also be used to make abortion rare. Real sex ed, birth control - fully fund Title X.
He's doing okay but it's too long an answer. That should have been a home run.
And BushCo jumps right on it: "Trying to decipher that." Nothing like the President of the United States letting people know it's okay if they can't follow a fairly direct line of reasoning. Stay asleep, America.
This BushCo answer is almost too painful for me to blog. Partial birth abortion, unborn victims of violence act, good adoption law as an alternative to abortion. "The culture of life is really important for a country to have if it's going to be a hospitable society." Let's try to decipher that.
Kerry: It's never as simple as the president wants you to believe.
BushCo brings up Kerry's vote against banning "partial birth" abortion. And says that that is simple.
BushCo is closing strong. Lots of good ol' boy joking.
10:29 - To BushCo - name a mistake. He can't do it. It's up to historians to decide if his appointment to head the National Lettuce Board was the right one. But he won't name the mistakes he's made in appointments because he doesn't "want to hurt their feelings on national tv." Ask Paul O'Neill about hurt feelings and dignified dismissals.
Kerry is closing cold. He's making the mistake of answering questions with facts instead of clowning around about not wanting to hurt appointees' feelings.
Why won't Kerry knock that god-darned $87 billion lie out of the park??? It would be so easy. Let's see if can do it - alright, not bad but not vivid enough for the uninformed. He never mentions that BushCo was going to veto it if it didn't meet with his exact provisions - one of which was the exclusion of improved medical benefits for reservists and veterans. That's not too complicated to explain, is it?
10:37 - Crowd was looking incredibly bored at the end there during both closing statements. No mention of the Cards. I'm a happy woman.
Freep the polls. Write those letters.
Thanks, Rob. I was at work tonight but as soon as I got home I rushed over here to see what you said and you outdid yourself. I heard the debate on the radio and I suspect from what you said (I haven't read anybody else yet) and what they said on the post-debate chat shows that the tv made quite a difference this time. I'll be posting about it later.
Posted by: Mick | October 09, 2004 at 02:39 AM