October 9, 2004 by s.z.

What We Learned From the Debate

1.  The first question let Bush use his favorite anti-Kerry bit of all time -- Kerry changes his positions a lot, as demonstrated by that remark he made about voting for the funding for the war before he voted against it.  Or something like that ...

Mr Bush: He said he voted for the $87 billion -- or voted against it right before he voted for it (sic). And that sends a confusing signal to people. 

Um, yes, we can see that it does.

2.  The real reason we invaded Iraq is that we thought Saddam would give his non-existant nuclear weapons to al-Qaeda, because they were buds.  Really.  We all thought that.  Everybody thought that Saddam would give atomic bombs to bin Laden.

3.  But President Bush wasn't at all happy that there were no WMDs.  He really hates it when murderous dictators don't have the weapons they need to maintain their membership in the exclusive Axis of Evil.

4.  George Bush doesn't keep his word.

Mr. Kerry: President stood right here in this hall four years ago, and he was asked a question by somebody just like you, "Under what circumstances would you send people to war?' And his answer was with a viable exit strategy and only with enough forces to get the job done. He didn't do that. He broke that promise. We didn't have enough forces. General Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, told him he was going to need several hundred thousand, and guess what? They retired General Shinseki for telling him that.

[...]

Ladies and gentlemen, he gave you a speech and told you he'd plan carefully, take every precaution, take our allies with us. He didn't. He broke his word. 

5.  George Bush doesn't keep us safe.

Mr Kerry: We were safer before President Bush came to office.

Now they [Iran, North Korea] have the bombs, and we're less safe. So what do we do? We've got to join with the British and the French, with the Germans who have been involved in their initiative. We've got to lead the world now to crack down on proliferation as a whole.

6.  Kerry's zingers made Bush "want to scowl."  Instead he just twitched, which was even creepier.  Seriously, he looked like he was suffering from a neurological disorder.  They should have just let him scowl, smirk, and pout -- it's what his face wants to do.

7.  The NY Times has changed its transcript while I have been preparing this post.  The first time I looked at it, the debate participants were identified as "SENATOR KERRY" and "PRESIDENT BUSH."  Now they're both the more egalitarian "Mr."  This clearly shows the paper's liberal bias.

8.  Mr. Bush heard that there are "rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft. "  Damn that pesky Internets and its rumor-mongering!  Oh, and we're NOT going to have a draft -- we're just going to extend the enlistments of the members of our current army for all of eternity.

9.  John Kerry says he has a plan that will ensure we have enough troops to do the job, but won't keep our reservists overseas for perpetuity.

Mr. Kerry: Now, I'm going to add 40,000 active duty forces to the military, and I'm going to make people feel good about being safe in our military and not overextended, because I'm going to run a foreign policy that actually does what President Reagan and President Eisenhower did and others. We're going to build alliances. We're not going to go unilaterally. We're not going alone like this president did.

10.  However, Kerry's answer made Mr. Bush so mad that he wanted to hit somebody (or everybody).

MR. GIBSON: Mr. President, let's extend for a minute -- (inaudible) -- issue of --

[Bush jumps out of his chair at this point and looks like he's going to swing at Gibson.]

PRESIDENT BUSH: Let me just -- one point. I've got to answer this.

MR. GIBSON: Exactly. And with reservists being held on duty and some soldiers --

PRESIDENT BUSH: Let me answer what he just said about going alone.

MR. GIBSON: Well, I wanted to get into the issue of the backdoor draft.

PRESIDENT BUSH: You tell Tony Blair we're going alone. Tell Tony Blair we're going alone. Tell Silvio Berlusconi we're going alone. Tell Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland we're going alone.

Yeah!  Never forget Poland or George will beat you to a bloody pulp!

11.  But Kerry gets to respond. (That's the problem with debates -- you don't get to cut the other guy's mic.) It seems that Missouri is the a bigger member of the coalition than Poland is.  Why doesn't Bush give Missouri the respect it deserves as the third lagest member of the coalition?

Mr. Kerry: Eight countries have left it [the coalition]. If Missouri, just given the number of people from Missouri who are in the military over there today, were a country, it would be the third largest country in the coalition, behind Great Britain and the United States. That's not a grand coalition.

12.  Bush cares more about tax cuts for the rich than he does about your safety. 

Mr. Kerry: Look at -- 95 percent of our containers coming into this country are not inspected today. When you get on an airplane, your bag is x- rayed but the cargo hold isn't x-rayed. Do you feel safer?

This president in the last debate said, well, that would be a big tax gap if we did that. Ladies and gentlemen, it's his tax plan. He chose a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans over getting that equipment out into the homeland as fast as possible.

We have bridges and tunnels that aren't being secured. Chemical plants, nuclear plants that aren't secured. Hospitals that are overcrowded with their emergency rooms. If we had a disaster today, could they handle it? This president chose a tax cut over homeland security. Wrong choice.

13. "Liberty can change habits," and so the elections in Iraq and Afghanistan will presumably cause terrorists who have the habit of building bombs to instead take up jogging.  Freedom will solve everything.  That's the Bush plan for making us safer.

14.  The problem with getting American prescription drugs from Canada is that they could really be from Mars or Venus. 

Mr. Bush: And my worry is is that, you know, it looks like it's from Canada; it might be from a Third World.

And YOU thought he was just worried about offending the drug companies who have contributed so much to his campaign!

15.  ALL of  those damned Democrats are the most liberal senator of all!

Mr. Bush: The National Journal named Senator Kennedy (sic) the most liberal senator of all, and that's saying something in that bunch. You might say that took a lot of hard work.

16.   George Bush has been our President for the past 3 and 3/4 years.  Sure, he never wants to talk about it, but he has been.  Mr. Kerry has something to say about his record.

Mr. Kerry: Now, with respect to the deficit. The president was handed a $5.6 trillion surplus, ladies and gentlemen. That's where he was when he came into office. We now have a $2.6 trillion deficit. This is the biggest turnaround in the history of the country. He's the first president in the 72 years to lose jobs. He talked about war. This is the first time the United States of America has ever had a tax cut when we're at war.  

17.  Mr. Bush starts hallucinating if asked to talk about his responsiblity for the deficit and job losses, and imagines that moderators are lights who are trying to cut him off.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Now, he's just going to break all of these wonderful promises he's told you about or he's going to raise taxes. And I suspect, given his record, he's going to raise taxes.Is my time up yet?

MR. GIBSON: No, you can keep going.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Keep going. Good. (Laughter.)

MR. GIBSON: You're on a roll.

PRESIDENT BUSH: You looked at me like my clock was up. (Light laughter.) 

I wish the moderators would stop looking at Bush during these debates -- he just can't take the pressure!

18.  Mr. Bush: "I guess you'd say I'm a good steward of the land."   You know, if the toxic waste or air pollution had gotten to your brain or something.

19.  Mr. Bush's plan to have you save your own money in case of a health emergency is "different from saying, okay, let me incent you to go on the government ." I bet you didn't know that.

20.  Mr. Bush still hasn't read the Patriot Act.  As we've pointed out before, it allows the ASAC in an FBI field office to subpoena information.  Thus, every action being taken does NOT "require a court order." 

21.  Mr. Kerry has a way with a phrase:

But you know what we also need to do as Americans, is never let the terrorists change the Constitution of the United States in a way that disadvantages our rights.  

22.  Mr. Bush would not appoint a judge to the Supreme Court who would reintroduce slavery -- if you were worried about that, he has set your mind at ease. 

Oh, and he doesn't hold with those activist judges who would do things like prohibit the Pledge of Allegiance from being said in schools, or rule that black kids should be able to go to white schools.  He's in favor of judges who strictly interpret the Constitution, and who will amend it if the interpretation doesn't go the way he wants it to.

23.  Either you are for partial birth abortion, or you are for letting women die from complications arising from the pregnancy.  Either you are against parental notification laws, or you are for making a girl who was raped by her father get permission from him to terminate the resulting pregnancy.

Mr. Bush: It's pretty simple when they say are you for a ban on partial birth abortion? Yes or no. [...] And that's just the way it is.

24.  Mr. Bush sure hates anybody who asks him if he has ever made a mistake.

25.  And anyway, the only mistakes he has ever made were appointing people like Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neil -- and maybe Paul Bremer and those damned weapons inspectors who keep issuing those pesky reports.  And possibly Colin Powell, if he starts shooting his mouth off.   But hey, Bush doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, so pretend you don't know whom he meant.

26.  Oddly enough, Mr. Kerry can come up with some mistakes that President Bush has made.

Mr. Kerry: I believe the president made a huge mistake, a catastrophic mistake, not to live up to his own standard, which was build a true global coalition, give the inspectors time to finish their job and go through the U.N. process to its end. And go to war as a last resort.I ask each of you just to look into your hearts, look into your guts - gut-check time. Was this really going to war as a last resort? The president rushed our nation to war without a plan to win the peace.

26.  Let's let Mr. Bush have the last word:

The truth of the matter is if you listen carefully Saddam would still be in power if he [Kerry] were the president of the United States. And the world would be a lot better off.   

12:11:18 AM