1st Debate

[Pangloss]

I thought it was a good debate. Much better than had been predicted.

 

I thought Kerry won on style, and Bush won on substance, but both victories were marginal. Bush got a little too argumentative and gave Kerry the "smoothness" victory. But what counts more with me is substance, and there the only flaw I could see in Bush's arguments was when he was a bit hung up on justification for Iraq.

 

For the most part Kerry was unable to punch a hole in Bush's armor, and Bush showed strong on foreign policy knowledge (what a contrast with four years ago!). There was only one point that Kerry made that Bush was unable refute, but Bush put up at least three that I could see that Kerry could not refute. So I think Bush won the substance debate.

[budullewraagh]

just a bit hung up on justification for iraq?

 

what about the korea thing? bush let korea get nukes and he didn't really thwart kerry's statement. and what about homeland security? bush downplayed kerry's ideas for inspections of shipments, guarding chemical storage facilities etc.

 

what were these points that bush made that kerry couldn't refute? really, we need deeper coverage than that

[LucidDreamer]

I was actually quite surprised at how well Bush was able to handle himself and explain his reasoning. It's true that Kerry was able to point out several failures during the Bush administration, but what administration doesn't have failures that the opposition can't point out during election time. Bush wasn't bad at all in the debate, just a little too defensive. I do disagree with his foreign policies though. He seems to have no understanding of the importance of good relations with the rest of the world. He has no understanding of diplomacy at all.

 

Invading Iraq and committing American troops was a bold, decisive, and proactive act, but it was also the wrong one, and obviously so.

[Pangloss]

Well put.

[bloodhound]

all the political commenters here say that Kerry did better than Bush. and may have managed to close the gap.

[Pangloss]

what about the korea thing? bush let korea get nukes and he didn't really thwart kerry's statement. and what about homeland security? bush downplayed kerry's ideas for inspections of shipments, guarding chemical storage facilities etc.

 

what were these points that bush made that kerry couldn't refute? really, we need deeper coverage than that

 

I certainly agree with the last point.

 

I agree Kerry won the debate point about North Korea. The issue in general is very cloudy, I think Kerry has a valid point but so does Bush. We were paying them ridiculous sums of money under the Clinton appeasement plan while at the same time paying another fortune to defend South Korea! Kerry's approach would seem intended to send us right back to Square One. On the other hand, Bush's plan of having us walk away from the table for two years is hardly a recipe for peaceful resolution, now is it? Like I said -- cloudy.

 

Homeland security: Kerry couldn't get a wedge in here, because Bush has the basic stats to back him up. A better approach for Kerry would have been to play up the civil liberties problems with TSA+Patriot+Padilla+Guantanamo Bay. He's too close to Bush's position here.

 

Regarding port inspection, it's hardly "Kerry's idea" to inspect more shipments in ports. Both sides are spending billions and want to spend more billions. Tons of new equipment has gone in and still we have the same problem. So there's not a damn thing Kerry can do about that that Bush isn't already doing. Same problem as above -- their positions are too similar for Kerry to score a debate point.

[bloodhound]

Pple are commenting on how bush was on the defensive all the time as well

[YT2095]

did anyone see the part when bush went to say "Mixed Messages" and nearly said "mexed missages" LOL

[Phi for All]

did anyone see the part when bush went to say "Mixed Messages" and nearly said "mexed missages" LOL

See, I don't count those as Bushisms. Anyone can trip or get a little dislexic with a couple of alliterative words.

 

It's the ones where he obviously isn't listening to what he's been saying that scare me.

[Pangloss]

They both tripped over their words a few times. In fact, Kerry started off confusing Osama for Saddam, and Bush followed suit the very next time he had the floor, which kinda made me wonder if it was an example of monkey-see-monkey-do.

 

There are probably very few things in the world that put more pressure on a single individual than a US presidential debate.

[YT2095]

this isn`t the "Bushism" thread though, and though that thread does contain some spoonerisms, I considered it a particularly interesting/funny one because of the words used doing exactly what the words meant

[Phi for All]

There are probably very few things in the world that put more pressure on a single individual than a US presidential debate.

See, that's one of the things I look for in a world leader, the ability to do and say the right thing under pressure. Heeding the advice of experts is also high on my list. Ooh, ooh, and exhausting all other possibilities before going to war.

 

Sorry.

[jattaway]

what about the korea thing? bush let korea get nukes and he didn't really thwart kerry's statement. and what about homeland security? bush downplayed kerry's ideas for inspections of shipments, guarding chemical storage facilities etc.

 

Had it not been for appeasment style democrats like Kerry, they would not be using the reactors Clinton built for them to enrich Uranium.

 

As with most things comming from the extreme far left, it is easy to point out what is wrong, the harder thing is showing a realistic plan for what you would do different and more important how you would pay for it.

 

The leftist media spin is that the current crisis in North Asia is the result of George W. Bush calling Pyongyang a member of the 'axis of evil.' In reality, the soft-line appeasement policy taken by Clinton against North Korea and China is what has led us to this point.

 

For example, former Clinton adviser Paul Begala, now serving as a talking head on CNN, claimed that the Clinton administration contained the threat from North Korea. Clearly, Mr. Begala missed the 1990s.

 

Of course, Mr. Begala simply forgot that Clinton's military chief of staff testified in 1998 that North Korea did not have an active ballistic missile program. One week later the North Koreans launched a missile over Japan that landed off the Alaska coast.

 

During the early Clinton years, hard-liners and so-called conservative hawks advocated a pre-emptive strike to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons development before it could field an atomic bomb. Instead of taking the hard line, President Clinton elected to rely on former President Jimmy Carter and decided to appease the Marxist-Stalinist dictatorship.

 

Carter met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang and returned to America waving a piece of paper and declaring peace in our time. Kim, according to Carter, had agreed to stop his nuclear weapons development.

 

The Clinton appeasement program for North Korea included hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, food, oil and even a nuclear reactor. However, the agreement was flawed and lacked even the most informal means of verification.

 

In return, Kim elected to starve his people while using the American aid to build uranium bombs. The lowest estimate is that Kim starved to death over 1 million of his own people, even with the U.S. aid program.

 

Stop blaming the Right for the failings of the Lefts foreign policy. As with the US economy, we were left with cleaning up the mess you and those who think like you have created. All you are really doing is fussing at us for not cleaning it up fast enough.

 

Portions of this taken from http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/1/7/164846.shtml

[jattaway]

On the topic of the debates... Kerry did a great job, his bid could have been over last night, but he has managed to buy himself some time. I don't think that he changed many peoples minds, but he did as well as he could have. Bush, well... Bush is Bush... He was on topic, and did not change any minds either. Given his current lead, he did not really have to though.

 

For those interested, I like this utility for monitoring current trends.

 

It is a free download.

 

http://www.adorons.com/a/ESGI/enig_sv_public_22.html

[Lance]

Pple are commenting on how bush was on the defensive all the time as well

 

That’s because Kerry had nothing to lose going into this debate and bush had everything to lose. I think that says something about his character.

 

See, that's one of the things I look for in a world leader, the ability to do and say the right thing under pressure. Heeding the advice of experts is also high on my list. Ooh, ooh, and exhausting all other possibilities before going to war.

 

Speaking is a whole lot different than doing and saying. How would you define an expert? What possibilities would these be?

[YT2095]

How would you define an expert?

and EX is a has been and a Spurt is just a Drip under Pressure

[Pangloss]

See, that's one of the things I look for in a world leader, the ability to do and say the right thing under pressure. Heeding the advice of experts is also high on my list. Ooh, ooh, and exhausting all other possibilities before going to war.

 

Agreed!

[Phi for All]

Speaking is a whole lot different than doing and saying.

Different from doing, exactly like saying.

How would you define an expert?

Someone payed to give advice to the president' date=' like the Secretary of the Treasury ("Mr. President, you've already given the wealthy one tax break, why are you giving them another?")

What possibilities would these be?

Oh, say, waiting the extra two weeks it would have taken the UN inspection team to be absolutely sure there were no WMD's in Iraq, possibly using that two weeks to form a better plan for getting in, getting Hussein and getting out again if the UN found anything worthy.

[jattaway]

Oh, say, waiting the extra two weeks it would have taken the UN inspection team to be absolutely sure there were no WMD's in Iraq, possibly using that two weeks to form a better plan for getting in, getting Hussein and getting out again if the UN found anything worthy.

 

This is a Red Herring and a bit on the intellectually perfidious side. It is impossible to find meaningful evidence in a country that size with so few people doing the searching and a government actively working against you. 2 weeks or 2 years would not have made a significant difference. As to the existence of WMDs, if they existed or not are still very much in question even if both sides have backed off of it. Saddam moved weapons systems to neighboring countries during the first gulf war; there is no reason to believe he did not do the same in this one. There are also many from within the regime that say that they were sent to Syria. I am not arguing for or against either theory, just pointing out the weakness in the above statement.

[Pangloss]

Blix did want a lot more than two weeks, in fact I vaguely recall from his book that he wanted another six months (don't make me look it up, I think it's under a HUGE pile in the bedroom).

[Phi for All]

Blix did want a lot more than two weeks, in fact I vaguely recall from his book that he wanted another six months (don't make me look it up, I think it's under a HUGE pile in the bedroom).

Forgive me, I remembered that Blix was two weeks away from completing his inspections and hadn't found anything, but didn't dismiss the possibility that they would find anything. Wanting more time was absolutely necessary, but his scheduled inspections were two weeks short of being complete, if I remember correctly.

 

Saddam moved weapons systems to neighboring countries during the first gulf war; there is no reason to believe he did not do the same in this one.

As for moving operations elsewhere, satellite reconaissance did not favor that possibility over normal traffic in and out of the monitored facilities.

[Douglas]

I thought it was a good debate. Much better than had been predicted.

I thought Kerry won on style' date=' and Bush won on substance,[/quote']

I, too, thought Kerry won on style, but Bush won on conviction, steadfastness and honesty.

[r1dermon]

kerry won outright. bush's convictions are not good ones. if you keep punching a rock wall, and progressively you bleed more and more, will you keep doing it? well thats what bush has been doing, but all his blind supporters seem to think its going somewhere....his convictions are to keep us in iraq forever, until someone else takes over to make the tough decision, because bush is stuck in iraq and he doesnt have a pot to piss in. ask him what his plan for iraq is, he'll say we're rebuilding...ahh, how broad.

[Pangloss]

Forgive me, I remembered that Blix was two weeks away from completing his inspections and hadn't found anything, but didn't dismiss the possibility that they would find anything. Wanting more time was absolutely necessary, but his scheduled inspections were two weeks short of being complete, if I remember correctly.

 

It's possible, I just don't remember now. I don't think it's particularly relevent.

[Phi for All]

his convictions are to keep us in iraq forever, until someone else takes over to make the tough decision, because bush is stuck in iraq and he doesnt have a pot to piss in. ask him what his plan for iraq is, he'll say we're rebuilding...ahh, how broad.

I think my biggest fear (besides WWIII) is that Iraq is going to be a "police station" for the neo-conservatives to expand global interests. I think it was Pangloss who pointed out that it took us over 200 years to go from $0 to $250 billion in defense spending, and just 10 years to go from $250 billion to $500 billion. It's absolutely ridiculous.