Just got back from synagogue. So let’s see what’s going on.
9:45 Good fast defense of John Edwards and he’s talking about health care. Seems to be doing a good job.
9:47 Has Bush been sounding this whiney the whole time?
9:49 So Bush is blaming the recession on Clinton? Gee. There’s a surprise.
9:50 Thus far, Bush seems more comfortable in this format than he was last week. On the other hand, he had all the questions ahead of time. I’m not sure if he answered the question though.
9:52 Kerry’s doing a good presentation. On the other hand, I’m not sure if he’s answering the question either. For that matter, I’ve forgotten what it was.
9:53 Okay, the moderator just said, “How?” Bush is not answering it. Let’s see if Kerry presents how.
9:54 Nope. He didn’t either.
9:55 Well, if Kerry gets elected and winds up raising taxes, this answer’ll come back to bite him on the ášš.
9:57 Wait…”Either he’s going to break all these promises he made, or he’s going to raise taxes.” Bush just said the same thing twice. He should be writing Daily Bugle headlines. “Spider-Man: Threat or Menace.”
9:59 “Look at the record.” Mr. President, you really, REALLY don’t want your record looked at too closely.
10:00 I’ll be interested to see the fact checkers on Bush’s response about environmental initiatives.
10:02 Well, Kerry just lost Boston.
10:03 Good riposte on Kyoto by Kerry.
10:06 Good answer from Kerry about being competitive.
10:08 Bush continues to hammer the “didn’t show up” thing. I really think someone whose military history is criticized for his not showing up shouldn’t be going down that path.
10:09 Okay, DOES Bush own a timber company? Because if he does and it really is news to him, boy, that’s going to be all over the papers tomorrow.
10:11 “I don’t think the Patriot Act abridges your rights at all.” Oooooh, that may not have been the smartest thing to say.
10:12 “Whole bunch of folks.” Kerry’s starting to talk like Bush.
10:14 Kerry seems reaaaally uncomfortable in handling the stem cell question. Which is odd, because he’s been extremely firm on his opinion about it. He probably doesn’t want to risk offending the extreme religious folks any more than Bush does. Silly. They’re gonna vote for Bush either way. Might as well just go for it.
10:16 Never seen Kerry so tongue-tied.
10:17 Bush is doing better on this question than Kerry, which is interesting since so many people support stem cell research.
10:21 Kerry is absolutely knocking the judge question out of the park while Bush was muddy over it.
10:23 Kerry is doing only so-so with the question about tax dollars. I get the whole “respecting” thing, but it’s really all over the place.
10:27 “It’s never quite as simple as the president wants you to believe.” And Bush is not getting it.
10:28 Ohhhhh,Bush is going right down the chute on ths question, I have a feeling.
10:28 Wow. Bush’s rebuttal was really quite awful.
10:29 Those last two should have been switched. Bush’s rebuttal on partial birth was awful. The down the chute is on the question about making mistakes, and yeah, I was right. Awful.
10:30 “Gut check time?”” I like that. “IT’S GUT CHECK TIME!”
10:31 “Saddam would be in power and the world would be a lot better off.”
10:33 You know waht would be interesting? If Kerry said, “If you guys want, I’ll hang out and answer more of your questions, unprepared. Just toss ’em out.”
10:35 Kerry’s closing was basic stump speech.
10:36 Same with Bush. “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” “9/11.” Typical buzz scare talk.
• 
Kerry’s sounding good…Bush is too, though sometimes has a petulent child tone going…I gotta say that Kerry’s glossing over a question to move back to a topic he wants to go on about…I expect Bush to do that, but I expect Kerry to actually answer a question.
Who said “No new taxes!” Who’s brother was at the heart of the S&L scandal?
If Bush thinks all of these things will grow the economy, where were they in the past 4 years?
By the way, C-Span is where to watch this…nice split screen.
Olbermann has Kerry far up on Bush in the debate. Kerry is presenting well, while Bush stutters and forgets at times that he isn’t speaking to his supporters. On a few occassions, he’s thrown the same barbs out towards Kerry or used the “I wanna scowl” line that he used in northeastern PA earlier this week. Very limited response and it doesn’t seem to be sticking.
Kerry is solid and sounds great…. I only wish he’d stick to answering the questions simply, without taking a good deal of time to bash Bush. It takes away from his strengths and his proposals.
Fred
Bush doesn’t address the enormous deficit he created in his response because there is no defense of it. The Republicans try to claim the financial superiority, but they’ve reigned over enourmous deficits,in the 80’s and now, in while President Clinton’s term left us with a surplus of _trillions_? Kerry should hit this more.
Peter David: 9:47 Has Bush been sounding this whiney the whole time?
Luigi Novi: Yes.
Peter David: 9:50 Thus far, Bush seems more comfortable in this format than he was last week. On the other hand, he had all the questions ahead of time. I’m not sure if he answered the question though.
Luigi Novi: Charles Gibson said at the top of the program that they were not given them in advance.
And I
Peter, you missed Bush saying “Missoura” and “internets”. 😉
And while I’m here..some links I found today…
Kerry’s position on Guns:
http://www.americansforgunsafety.com/31524155317.html
Threats against the Texas-Iconoclast for daring to support Kerry:
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/Columns/Editorial/editorial40.htm
Oh geeze…he actually brought up the hydrogen car thing! And he went on a he doesn’t care about being popular in Europe thing–Kerry is really good at refereing to a previous questioner by name!
Fred Chamberlain: I missed the “Missoura” comment but I found “internets” hilarious. I wondered if I was the only one who picked up on it but it seems we have a new “Bushism.”
It’s as bad as when a Miss USA contestant, when asked about the space program, said that we need to discover other “universes.” Huh?
Kerry clearly seems more at ease. Bush has gone back to his stool several times, picking up his pen before sitting and putting it down immediately without use. Either very uncomfortable in this forum or OCD.
you missed Bush saying “Missoura”
Colonel Potter called it that too.
Yes! Finally talk about the environment. The Bush Administration has chosen big business over the welfare of this planet over and over again. The details I’ve read disgusted me and, without being accused of being treehugging nuts, the Democrats do need to bring more attention to the war this administration has declared on the environment.
(Hopefully less typos in this post)
Ya know, the more I hear Bush saying that “*** won’t work.”, the more I think Kerry could difuse this and strengthen his support base by showing the difference between him and Bush…. “I strongly belive in ****, but I would always encourage those with concerns to share their thoughts and sights. Working together, we can only be stronger.”
I don’t have timestamps, but I was commenting on my DeadJournal during the first forty-five minutes:
———
“You have to be consistent to be President.”
-George W. Bush
“Consistency is the defense of a small mind.”
-David Eddings
I find it funny that Bush is beginning to paraphrase Cheney’s words from the Vice-Presidential debate last Tuesday. Goes to show you who’s really running the country.
Found out it was 104 degrees today in Baghdad. I’m debating spending a lot of unnecessary money to get Ben one of those portable misting fans or neck cooling gel pack…things.
As I’m watching Bush lose his temper – and Jesus Christ, laughing at Kerry’s rebuttals!? – it almost looks like he wants to go kick Kerry’s ášš. Or make his Daddy do it.
I can’t wait to vote.
The lighting at this debate is horrible. It’s making Kerry look like he’s carrying designer bags under his eyes.
If Bush laughs or snickers at Kerry one more time, I hope the moderator calls him on it. I mean, come on. Unprofessional, boorish, juvenile and bottom line, he’s being a d*ck.
You know where both of them are going wrong? They think they can solve the situation in Iraq during their administrations. The problem is that peace in the Middle East is not going to happen during the next administration. Or the next one. I will be shocked if it happens in my lifetime. I think Kerry can make better choices towards making it less chaotic in Iraq, which is part of why I’m voting for him.
Bush has to quit looking indignant. He looks like a petulant, whining child who’s two seconds from a kicking, screaming temper tantrum. How can anyone want to vote for a guy who can’t deal with criticism? Cracks under pressure like *snap* that!
“I’ve made some decisions on Israel that’s unpopular.” -GWB
It’s called proper grammar, jáçkášš.
Kerry is nailing Bush’s ášš to the wall on how he said he’d handle going to war (i.e. “with a viable exit strategy”).
Bush is now responding and yelling without even waiting for a prompt from the moderator. Impatient, jumps the gun, rude…hm. Sounds like how he went to war.
Ooh. Someone’s bringing up Iran. Go, girl. Let’s hear what Kerry has to say.
Looks like he’s attacking Bush for being distracted in Iraq, which has no WMD’s. He’s now bringing up North Korea. Kerry oughtn’t blame that fully on Bush, though, as almost the last 100 years of presidents have stalemated against North Korea, since they’ve got Seoul and the rest of South Korea as a nice, country-sized hostage.
Kerry is saying he’s going to crack down on nuclear proliferation, specifying North Korea and Iran.
“That answer almost made me want to scowl.” -GWB
Pause. Wait for laugh.
Ha. Not even crickets, f*cktard, not even crickets.
“I hear there’s rumors on the Internets that we’re going to have a draft.” -GWB
“Internets”? There’s more than one?
I hate this guy.
He says we’re not going to reinstate a draft. Well, duh. NOBODY’S going to reinstate the draft. There’d be rioting in the streets, not to mention en masse relocations to Canada. I think Jay got it right. 🙂
Ooooooooh……Bush is TOTALLY cutting in to the moderator. He’s interrupting, being rude, yelling and getting red-faced…it’s pìššìņg me off and I’m not even there.
Basically he’s insisting that we have a “grand coalition” of allies with us in the Iraqi War. (Does it even have an official name yet? Gulf War II?) But Kerry says that if Missouri was a country, and it joined us in the war, it would only be the third larget army in Iraq, behind Great Britain and the U.S.
Read an interesting viewpoint in the Sun-Times today. It was opined that pulling out of Iraq is really the best option we have. They didn’t want to pull out of Vietnam either, but eventually we had to. And we lost face, true. But not for long. We are still a huge superpower in the world. America wasn’t weakened by a withdrawal from Vietnam. We survived. We don’t have to “win” this war. It’s a Bush war anyway. We’re in the wrong f*cking country. How about Iran? How about moving more of our forces to Afghanistan and getting bin Laden – you know, the guy who attacked us?
“If a drug comes from Canada, we gotta make sure it doesn’t come from a Third World.” -GWB
Alien drugs? Cool. 🙂
Also, nice secondary implication. Canadians are probably more advanced than we are, except for the whole hockey and syrup thing. 🙂
Kerry nailed Bush again for the problem of the debt. He says Clinton not only balanced the budget, he paid down the debt of the nation. In less than four years, Bush has gotten us into a debt that is greater than it ever was, from Washington to Clinton combined.
Awww, Bush is upset because Kerry’s going to give the middle-class a tax cut and tax the rich. Poor baby. If you want to pìšš øff a Republican, threaten his wallet. Works every time. 🙂
How come Bush always begins an answer in which he becomes most defensive, telling the questioner that they are wrong or he hopes they don’t think that with “I appreciate that”, when clearly he doesn’t?
Good closing line – and absolutely right – from Kerry on not letting the terrorists reduce our constitutional rights.
Kerry is friends with SUPERMAN!!!! He gets my vote!!!
and Teen Wolf!
Fûçk. I’m really pìššëd that that guy in the audience asked Bush why his rights are being watered down by the Patriot Act, because it allowed Bush to say that they’re not being watered down, and talk about parts of the Act that make it easier for differnet agencies to share information, which is obviously not what that guy was talking about. What that guy should’ve asked was about SPECIFIC parts of the Act he was thinking about, like the ability to survey and jail people without evidence.
Even more bizarre is that Kerry himself brought up these points, and followed through by explaining that he voted for the Act himself, repeating the mention about interagency communication, and defending himself against charges of being wishy washy and a flip flopper. What the fûçk? Someone wanna explain this to me?
Luke K. Walsh: Good closing line – and absolutely right – from Kerry on not letting the terrorists reduce our constitutional rights.
Luigi Novi: So why did he vote for the Patriot Act?
Bush gets points in sounding incredibly sincere and empathetic when he begins to respond to the stem cell question…… he quickly loses points when he stumbles over and repeats words in his follow-up line about “stem cell reach being done and allowing stem cells to be researched”…. or sumpin.
On Kerry as most liberal senator:
Even National Journal stated that use of their rating is,
Bush is criticizing a judge on “Personal opinion interfering in the decision-making process”…. is he truly this blind about his own actions?
Okay, at first I wasn’t sure I liked this format, but it does seem to be addressing a lot of the issues I’m concerned about. My mom has progressive Multiple Sclerosis; she hasn’t had any use of her legs in twnety years, so stem cell research is important to my family. Stem cells are taken from excess fetuses from fertility clinics, which would otherwise be disgarded. Either be used to save lives, or thrown out. It’s not about “destroying more life”.
Bush won’t put someone on the Court that would declare black people property? Well, guess he is a compassionate!
BTW, from Factcheck.org:
Oooh..Abortion question..we can compare Kerry’s answer to Bartletts!
Kerry answers the abortion/murder question very well. Either one agrees or not, but his response was straightforward, clear and respectful.
BWAHAHAHAH!! Right after I typed the previous post, Bush states, “I’m trying to decipher that.”
Sad, inexplicable but true — a substantial percent of people in residing in that state say “Missouruh”. Every voiceover of every political ad aired in that state says “Missouruh”. I believe you can imagine who they’re pandering to.
Re West Wing’s President Bartlett: “He doesn
Oh! Harsh last question!
“You can run, but you can’t hide.”? Is he talking about Kerry’s stance on abortion and his own confusion or the taliban? His soundbytes are stuck on repeat in his head, having gotten old long ago.
Okay. Why is NBC a couple seconds behind ABC? Are they using a time-delay, in case one of the candidates says something obscene?:)
(BTW, feel a little weird with all these post when I haven’t posted in months; was off the internet for a bit, later had to re-find this site after it was re-formated. Been reading, though, finally jumped back on tonight)
Oo! Will Bush admit a mistake??? (_Three_, she wants?)
Man, Bush is really being a prìçk over Kerry’s position on partial-birth abortion. I’m against partial-birth abortion myself, and even I think Bush’s description of Kerry’s proposition of it is distorted.
Whoa, he actually admitted making a mistake. It was in “appointing” people, and won’t name names, but whaddaya know?
In speaking of Saddam :”We Know he has invaded other countrIES”??? Ugh.
No! He still, pathologically, can’t admit to being wrong about anything! He did not answer her question AT ALL. Wow.
Luigi:
>Man, Bush is really being a prìçk over Kerry’s position on partial-birth abortion. I’m against partial-birth abortion myself, and even I think Bush’s description of Kerry’s proposition of it is distorted.
…and that isn’t the only thing being distorted. Look closer. 😉
Bush just uttered a new Bushism: He said that if Kerry were President, “Saddam Hussein would still be in power, and the world would be a lot better off.”
So now he’s saying the world’d be better off if Hussein WERE still in power?
“Thank you,…. it’s been enjoyable”. Does anyone actually believe this statement to be true for him?
C’mon Lugi…it was obvious what he meant…there’s legitimate stuff to slam him for:-)
“Don’t increase the scope of the federal government…” except when it comes to legislating marriage and morality, I guess.
“I promised Americans that we would not rest or tire until these terrorists are brought to justice”…. thinking, *…but I will be distracted by shiny objects*
Kerry closed well, but went into pander speech a bit too much.
One of Kerry’s best points I gotta say, was refereing to preivious questioners by name…that was a slick touch.
For Team Kerry’s Fact corrections on Bush’s comments, go to:
http://blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/
I’m sure someone will be along with Team Bush’s site.
“On the other hand, he had all the questions ahead of time…”
Say what?
http://www.georgewbush.com/debatefacts/Debate.aspx?stamp=10/8/2004%2010:47:34%20PM
Meghan:
>Sad, inexplicable but true — a substantial percent of people in residing in that state say “Missouruh”. Every voiceover of every political ad aired in that state says “Missouruh”. I believe you can imagine who they’re pandering to.
If this was calculated, I’d be even more concerned at his short-sightedness, as he would be catering to 1 state, leaving the other 49 thinking that he is an idiot.
Fred
” He probably doesn’t want to risk offending the extreme religious folks…”
Just shows how out of touch you are PAD. Funny how the sanctity of human life is considerd a belief only held by the religious extreme. I work with a democrat who hasn’t been in church since he was baptized and is against embryonic stem cell research. Get out of NY and talk to people for once.
James Tichy: How incredibly rude! If you can’t be polite, perhaps you should go elsewhere.
“10:09 Okay, DOES Bush own a timber company? Because if he does and it really is news to him, boy, that’s going to be all over the papers tomorrow.”
During post-debate wrap-up, NBC’s Brian Roberts says that per factcheck.org, Bush did own a small share of a wood company and did report $84 income in 2002 so he would qualify as a small business owner