Analyzing the debate

A lot of pundits have gone over Thursday's debate with a fine toothed comb, and they've done a far more marvelous job of it than I ever could.

Nevertheless, I do have some thoughts on it:


Let's face it - President Bush's forté is not  public speaking.  Debate is not one of his greater talents.  Nor is it even, I'm forced to admit, thinking quickly on his feet.  Fortunately for our country, these attributes are not absolutely necessary to be a great President.  According to Time  Magazine's archives, Truman himself "was no orator. He stumbled over big words, made mistakes in grammar, got tangled up in his sentences."

Remind you of anyone you know?

Truman's strength was his resoluteness, as well as his ability to make the big decision, even though he knew the decision might be unpopular.  This manifested itself especially in wartime, when he made the hard choice of deploying the two atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima & Nagasaki.  Said devices had the potential to be very unpopular here at home - especially among the appeaseniks of that time (yes, they were present then, too), but Truman knew that if he didn't,  the consequences would be a protracted war with Japan and many, many more US deaths.

Of whom does that remind you?

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Conventional wisdom (cough) is that Botox Boy won the debate.

But did he, really?  Let's look at the internals - how the debate was broken down.  These numbers are courtesy of Gallup via NewsMax.com:

Better debater:  Qerry 53%, Bush 37%

Clearer expression:  Qerry 60%, Bush 32%

More believable:  Bush 50%, Qerry 45%

Better on the issues:  Bush 49%, Qerry 46%

More likable:  Bush 48%, Qerry 41%

"Tough enough" to be President:  Bush 54%, Qerry 37%

Even Qetchup@$$' own goons think it was even, according to Drudge (via Limbaugh).  Drudge caught Joe "Pilsbury Doughboy" Lockhart telling Mike McCurry that the consensus was a "draw".  And the Washington Post and the Las Vegas Review-Journal even went so far as to call it a Bush win.

Besides, when you consider that most everything F'n said was either an outright lie or a half-truth, does it actually matter how  glib F-face was?  After all, a lie told in a convincing fashion is still  a lie.

Doesn't sound to me  as if Botox Boy won anything.

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Ever since ForgeryGate, there's been a clamor to remove See-BS' Bob Schieffer as one of the debate moderators.

Perhaps the focus should've been on removing Pee-BS' Jim Lehrer.

It's been said that Georgie-Porgie Snuffleupagus and the rest of Das Klintonreich's  media wing used to refer to Lehrer as "our moderator".

After the softballs Lehrer tossed up to the Qetchup Qing - as opposed to the thinly-veiled rip-jobs he was trying to pull on the President - reasonable people would be hard-pressed to disagree.

Some examples (again from NewsMax):

"You said there was a miscalculation in Iraq," Lehrer asked the president. "What was it and how did it happen?"

"What colossal misjudgments, in your opinion," Lehrer asked Kerry, "has President Bush made in these areas [Iraq]?"

To Bush: "Mr. President, has Iraq been worth the cost in American lives -10,052 - I mean 1,052 up to today?"

To Kerry: "You've repeatedly accused President Bush of lying to the American people on Iraq. Give us some examples of the president being untruthful on Iraq."

Despite his focus on Iraq, however, Lehrer never asked why Kerry voted to authorize the war, then turned around and voted against the legislation to fund it. Or why he voted against authorization for the first Gulf War, even though President Bush's father had amassed just the kind of coalition Kerry says the U.S. needs now.

Likewise, the PBS host declined to ask Kerry about comments in recent days from French and German officials who announced they have no intention of sending troops to Iraq, even if Kerry is elected.

Not exactly "fair & balanced" questioning there, eh what?

And when called on it by liberal radio host Don Imus, Lehrer had this to say:

"I don't know what in the world you're talking about," Lehrer told radio host Don Imus in his only post-debate interview.

"I would argue that my questions were right down the middle. There were some hardball questions for each candidate. There were some softball questions for each candidate. But for the most part they were just terrific."

Sure, Jim.  And those were bona fide  original documents See-BS received.  And every  typewriter the National Guard owned in 1972 could make a superscript.

Isn't that right, moron...?

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Speaking of "fair & balanced", Fox News Channel raked in nearly 10 million viewers for its coverage of the debate.

That's more than MSNBC.  More than CNBC.  More than CNN.  And it was pushing the free broadcast channels, save for NBC, which tallied 17.5 million viewers.

See-BS was second overall with 13.5 million viewers, proving that there are still at least 13.5 million morons in the country.

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Drudge is reporting that Botox Boy might have had himself a cheat sheet to work with during the debate - in blatant violation of rules to which each campaign agreed.

Typical Demoscum:  Can't play by the rules.  And this is the French fellater who would be the leader of the free world?


UPDATE:  Denizen Alan Henderson points out that one of the most disturbing parts of the debate was when Qetchup-@$$ proposed giving  Iran - a member of the Axis of Evil, if you'll recall - giving  Iran nuclear fuel rods in exchange for a promise not to use them to build nuclear weapons.

"Yes, Virginia, if we just give  them what they want, then they'll be nice to us and we won't have to worry about them any more..."

'Scuse me for saying so, but didn't the last  Demoscum to occupy the White House already try that?  Say, with a country over there on the 38th Parallel...?

I have one other thing to add to Alan's suggestion:  The lie flip-flop where His Botoxedness promised never to give veto power to defending the United States, then later on claiming that any pre-emptive action had to pass some sort of "global test" - and that any action had to be cleared with the French & the Germans.

Given enough time, those two blurbs should be enough to bring F-face's campaign crashing to the ground.  I just pray there's enough time for that to sink in...