The Black Republican

You are so right, Chris, and so am I (my comment above about doe-eyes). I was aghast about how this foreign policy debate didn't delve into Kerry's long record in office. Lehrer framed his questions to put Bush on the defensive, and Bush was too gentlemanly or off-guard to turn the debate into a question of Kerry's foreign policy qualifications. Many questions should have been asked of Kerry to explain why, based on his past votes, pronouncements and policy preferences, a voter should believe he would do better or even half as well as Bush in the War on Terror and proliferation issues.

The questions were typical of Lehrer's Newshour- no balance but a hearty pretense at it.

Aha! Now that I have a name, I'll give you credit. Didn't see much sense in saying, "'c' said..." There's a bad rendition of Abbot & Costello's "Who's on First?" if we go there.

For all the crap Bush took in those questions, he should win on balance. It's like those diving or gymnastics competitions at the Olympics: if you do the harder performance, you get more points for just surviving the attempt than doing something easy moderately well.

Not that I really expect the MSM to grade it that way, but let's see what the voters think.

I like the way you allocate points on degree of difficulty! Is there any doubt, though, that the MSM graded this debate way before it happened? They have tough publishing and show deadlines to consider, you know, unlike you cyber pundits---

It's difficult to believe there are voters who haven't made up their minds before now. I can't really wrap my mind around that.

Spot on, on both points, Charlotte: the press already had their scorecards written and the vapidity of the undecided. I hope like hell people like that just don't vote.

I was astonished by how similar last night's debate was to the 2000 debates. Kerry/Gore, so polished and forceful. Bush, so fumbling but sincere.

What is the obvious implication?

um, I usually post as "c", but the above commenter is NOT I or me or this Repub. Anyway, agreed, Chris!

To the other 'c': I didn't find Kerry "polished" so much, as just better able to string his words together with more facility than Bush. The concepts he touched upon were not that well articulated, but how could they be? His ideas, for the most part, are not well thought out or consistent. Kerry still could not explain why we should engage in bi-lateral talks with NoKo instead of multilateral, or whether and how he would have removed the Saddam menace, just how he would have gotten more "allies" on board for Iraq, and how he squares his complaining about our not doing enough to secure the peace in Iraq and about the resources we've put toward toward training police in Iraq instead of toward even more police in Peoria, etc.

But I was particularly struck by Kerry's one true moment shining through, when he put US development of bunker busters on par with rogue nation proliferation. He STILL draws some kind of moral equivalency between us and our weapons and those of dangerous regimes. Kerry does not really believe in peace through (our) strength. To Kerry, we should consider ourselves on par with other nations, no matter history or policy. His "global test" remark was clear and unambiguous, quintessential Kerry.