So, How About that Debate?
 

well, this thread will no doubt go down along the usual lines....but i think Kerry held his own pretty well. he seemed to have the Prez on the defensive pretty often - the best line of the night was the one about "outsourcing the hunt for Bin Laden to Afghanistan war lords".

i think Kerry'll pick up a bounce for this....Bush wanted to put hm away tonight, but it didn't happen :N:

i mean, Kerry is still a douchebag, but at least he looked like a presidential douchebag :ND:

felt like puking catching the last 20 mins of the debate.

kerry did a fine job, making clean and forceful points and betraying no nervousness. bush stuck to his message, perhaps simplistically so, while allowing kerry to get under his skin a few times but in general appearing affably confident if not particularly presidential. we all know bush is no rhodes scholar but he didn't exactly embarrass the u.s. with his idiocy, he seemed at least to have a magazine reader's command of some issues. but clearly after all the latest polls and the swift boat lies kerry had the hardest job. just showing up and cruising may have been ok for bush at this point in his campaign but would have been disastrous for kerry. the senator needed to correct a few misperceptions of the waffling/shifty/wimpy variety and he did that and more. he was bush’s superior intellectually (no big news there) but he was also something else: he was bush’s dominator, quietly leaving the president with little room but to rehash the same weak anti-kerry republican slogans. the ones that have always been suspect, but seem doubly so coming out of the mouth of a commander-in-chief of the most powerful country in the history of the world while standing within arms’ reach of the man he’s been vilifying for months and frankly not measuring up. i just couldn’t help knowing this man lacks the strength to lead the planet. that after all the prep, all the staff meetings, all the eyes-only cia and fbi reports, all the white house inside information, after four years in the oval office and all the recent debate practice, i was asking "is that all you have within you mr. president?" while hearing what i hope to god was the sound of double digit leads evaporating away.

- js.

To be honest, I felt that both candidates stuck to their own routines and came off fairly evenly matched. The only reason one would side with either man, would be because of one's support for that man. Kerry did what Kerry does. Bush did his usual Bush-logic, arguing that because he's been president for 4 years, it qualifies him for 4 more. I think at one point he, rather ironically, argued that the American people would vote for him because they wanted "someone who sticks to their guns".

I can't imagine it being any other way.

They are both liars!

To bad one of them will be elected.

That is all.

Amen.

They weren't even allowed to ask eachother questions, that is not a debate, that is telling stories.

edit: i forgot the t in stories :o

i made a typo ..... go figure :RE:

yup, i agree the format is a little sterile - i think it changes in the next one to a "town hall" style.

Bush reminded me of that classic Hunter Thompson line: "he sounded like a farmer with terminal cancer, trying to borrow against next year's crop." :BL:

...and the DNC wasted no time in putting this together:


The Faces of Frustration

Bush looks for all the world like somebody who feels he's above this kind of criticism, how dare Kerry question his policies, and all of this is just some formailty he has to suffer through in order to get back to his rightful place in the White House...

yeah. he was even poutier than gore was during his first debate. since bush was there for that one (wasn't he lol?) you'd think he'd have learned.

- js.

lol, good one dd. i used to collect those bush juxtapostions too. but there were too many for my harddrive. :D

- js.

after reviewing the debate footage, it's clear that Bush's discomfort was the direct result of a desperate need to urinate. notice how he bolted for the men's room immediately after.

amazingly enough, i was undergoing a similar experience at the exact same time. notice how i bolted for the men's room immediately after.

Ummm....I didn't notice; though of course we were all watching you through your computer monitor. I must have gotten distracted.

Interesting coincidence alright.







cuckoo-cuckoo

I'm blaming the whole thing on the fookin' liberal media.

hahahahahahaa...........

were they really taking notes ?

tonite's the vp debate....meaningless in the whole context of things (although a major fuck up by either could hurt a bit). i'm looking forward to it anyway - i have this image of Edwards like a little terrier, growling and hanging on Cheney's pant leg, as he tries to brush him off :D

How sad.
 

Watching from afar.
I find it very sad,that this is the best America can come up with.
At least with Bush you know what your getting.
Kerry can't make his mind up where he stands.
Rightly or wrongly Bush has his beliefs and goes with it.
I seen him on O'Rielly.
He never dodged one question.
He reminded me of "that bloody women"
My God how I hated her
(and still do,no doubt we'll have to stand a state funeral when she goes)
I have always been to the left in politics.
But I'm sorry to say.
I could not vote for someone like Kerry.
He appears to me that when the shit hits the fan,he'd bottle it.

he has one of those loud 'booming' voices..
(i bet he IS one of thos PEOPLE that probably LIKE to punctuate their TYPE in CAPS )
thats sort of impressive i guess
maybe a bit cliche..

Anyone that saw the debate between George W. Bush and John F. Kerry saw that Kerry won decisively and anyone claiming that Bush had won has absolutely no credibility. It wasn't even close. I don't know what they said when they shook hands beforehand but maybe Kerry told Bush "60 million people watching, no pressure" and Bush panicked at the thought of having to actually explain to 60 million people and his God who I don't think would like a lying tongue, what his rush to war was after turning up absolutely no weapons of mass destruction...

Bush looked confused as be babbled repeatedly the talking points from his pep rallies. If you didn't know who Bush was and saw him at a restaurant talking as he did during the debate not only would you not let him drive your car but you definitely would not let him drive your future. It was embarrassing to see the President of the United States so bewildered and out of his league. Bush appeared as an angry, doting old man who refused to accept the responsibility of his own actions. Instead of being man enough to live up to the mistakes on the ground in Iraq and the continuing mistakes, he was in complete denial instead talking down to the audience while ignoring the facts. This was not a man worthy of holding the office of the president. Bush has damaged the credibility of the United States, the credibility of the office of the president, he has now dumb downed the country. It is a sad day for America when its leader cannot grasp the English language nor make a credible case for his mistakes. He kept telling Americans that it was a hard job. We know that, so maybe he should find a job more in keeping with his skills, however I fail to think of any job from flipping hamburgers to shining shoes that he could do a credible job at, okay, maybe cutting wood in the bush. I've seen him on television doing that but like everything else he does it is staged for TV by his handlers so he may not be good at that either...

After watching the debate it became obvious why there are so few allies helping in Iraq and why none help pay for the venture. Bush doesn't like summits because he gets nothing accomplished at a summit. Put him in a room with other world leaders and he will babble on repeating himself until the world leaders walk away laughing at this incoherent twit of a president. Summits will never work with Bush because he talks and doesn't listen...

Bush while campaigning said of the debate, "Sen. Kerry only continued his pattern of confusing contradictions." I guess it would be confusing for Bush; it has become apparent that Bush can't grasp basic concepts. He is a 'special president' in the same way the Special Olympics are special....

It is one thing whether a Democrat or a Republican to vote along party lines but I cannot understand how any person could feel good about themselves voting for a candidate so obviously dense and unprepared for a job that he has had for almost 4 years. The presidency is somewhat like an out of control motor boat speeding across a lake, for awhile it will go on its own but eventually it will crash and burn. Attacking Iraq was the start of the crash, four more years of Bush and he'll have America in flames. For the last three and a half years this country has hand nobody paying attention to where the boat is heading. With Bush sitting in the captain's seat, the country is now going in an extremely dangerous direction. How could anyone vote for a man who still doesn't understand the problems on the ground in Iraq? His answer to the current fighting was, "We achieved such a rapid victory, more of the Saddam loyalists were around. In other words, we thought we'd whip more of them going in. But because Tommy Franks did such a great job in planning the operations, we moved rapidly. And a lot of the Ba'athists and Saddam loyalists laid down their arms and disappeared. I thought we would -- they would stay and fight. But they didn't. And now we're fighting them now." This is a president that didn't prepare for a guerrilla war, which is something the Iraqis did plan for. The president just doesn't get it; it wasn't because General Tommy Franks moved so rapidly that insurgents are all over and chaos reins in Iraq. It is because Bush refused to listen to his own military leaders that said around 200,000 troops would be needed. Instead he used much less and didn't seal off the Iraqi borders. The foreign fighters and terrorists came into Iraq after the occupation because Bush didn't have the troops whether American or coalition troops on the border preventing them from entering and he still doesn't. I heard Congressman Dan Burton on a cable show defend the poor planning by saying the United States hasn't stopped the foreign influx on the U.S.'s Mexican border either. Well I would hope that Congressman Burton and George Bush would stop it if they were using arms against America and setting off improvised explosive devices on their constituents. Too bad they won't support the American troops enough to do something to stop the influx of fighters crossing from Syria and Iran that are killing American troops and beheading workers. Instead of getting enough troops to prevent a problem Bush recently sent a delegation to a meeting in Damascus for talks with Syria this of course was after the problem started instead of have listening to his military in the first place that they needed more troops. It is a little late for talks but that is all Bush can do because he didn't have a plan when he went into Iraq and he doesn't have a plan to get out of it now...

Bush thinks somehow because he is president that makes him more qualified for the job of president than Senator Kerry but when you look at Bush's record and the many times Bush flip flopped on issues and so many times he made the wrong decisions he is less qualified than the common man that Bush seems to identify with. Bush may be the common man but there is a reason the common man is common. With the war in Iraq worsening the last thing the United States needs is a commander in chief who can't tell the truth about Iraq to the 60 million Americans tuning in to watch and doesn't have a chance in hell in getting any more international support than he already has...

Bush is a stubborn man and his supporters are equally stubborn. As I already said, I wouldn't let George W. Bush drive my car but some people will let him drive their future and their children's future. The very same children that will have to pay off Bush's deficit and that's if they are lucky; if they are unlucky they come home from Iraq in a flag draped coffin and never pay another tax. Vote for Bush, no exit plan, no real international help and when it gets worse in a second Bush term, no excuses. If you vote for Bush don't complain when all hell breaks loose; you know what you are getting and it isn't much, low expectations and even lower results from a special president...