Okay, I know my job. I will do my duty.
George Bush is a lying sack and his performance in tonight's presidential debate was abysmal. He stuttered, he hemmed and hawed, he looked positively lost for words without his TelePrompTer. When asked direct questions, he steered right around them, setting a world record for getting his stump speech into his answers in the fewest words. He looked annoyed at being questioned on anything, as if he were thinking to himself, "Man, aren't I the boss of this country? Do I really have to listen to people who disagree with me?"
He's a turd and it is my fondest wish and most sincere hope that a good majority of Americans saw that tonight.
And now for my fears.
I'm afraid that his simplemindedness strikes a simpleminded chord with many people in this country. I'm afraid that they didn't understand what John Kerry was saying, even if it was true, and tended to agree with the basic crap that Bush was spewing. Freedom, democracy, etc. We're Americans and we don't like to think that we're wrong about anything. If we are wrong, well, then we'd rather pretend we're right and just keep on going. What are we supposed to tell our children? America was wrong? That's just plain un-American.
I'm hopeful, though, that we as a people are smarter than that. Please, can we be smarter than that?
A few things I thought Kerry could have done better -- let's call them notes for the next debate:
- He should really attack this idea that questioning the war in Iraq sends "mixed messages" to our troops and to "the enemy;" an idea that Bush repeated again and again. While it makes a good sound bite, the implication of this idea is fundamentally anti-Democratic and un-American. Basically the president is saying that having a free and open debate about sending our country to war is dangerous. We should stifle criticism and all fall in line. Does this sound like Democracy? Kerry needs to hammer this point in very simple terms. What the president is suggesting is UN-AMERICAN.
- Several times Bush intimated that the fact that insurgents and terrorists are putting up such a fight in Iraq proves that Iraq is a central point in the War on Terror. Kerry needs to go after this flawed logic. The terrorists aren't fighting us in Iraq because it's central to the War on Terror, they're fighting us in Iraq because that's where we are. If we were fighting elsewhere, that's where the terrorists and insurgents would be, too. They fight us because of our doctrine and aggressiveness, not because of anything fundamental about Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorist attack of 9/11 and had never once attacked the United States, nor credibly threatened to do so. Every rationale that the president laid out for Iraq being a grave threat to the United States has been proven false.
- Speaking of the rationale(s) for war: Bush continues to lay into Kerry for voting for the war, then voting against it, blah, blah, the whole flip-flopper thing. I don't think Kerry defended himself on this point as well as he could have. What he should do is admit that he was wrong, something the president never does. Something like, "Yes, I saw the same intelligence the president saw and I reached the conclusion, as the president did, that Saddam was a threat. I was wrong. Our intelligence was wrong. This is clearly the case. Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, and he had no capability to harm America. He was not working with Al Qaeda. I voted for the authority to use force as an instrument of coercion; the president is solely responsible for launching a preemptive invasion. That was his decision alone. And now that all of it has been shown to be built on miscalculations and misinformation, the president says he "would do it all over again." Is that responsible leadership? Is that how you run your life?
Kerry did make many of these points, and I hope that he made them persuasively. Naturally he persuaded me, and most likely everyone who reads this blog, but we're not important in this.
In the end, I found Bush to be predictably arrogant, aloof, and self-obsessed. He can't stand to be confronted or to lower himself to answering for his actions. He resorted to cheap shots and evasions.
John Kerry, on the other hand, avoided personal attacks and spoke about policy and reality. He knows what it's like to be under fire, and he knows that the soldiers in a war don't consider a stateside debate over the necessity of their sacrifice to be disrespectful, but just the opposite. Soldiers under fire appreciate that we care enough to debate the value of sending them off to kill and be killed. What kind of respect are we showing them by just saying "forward, forward, forward" without considering if it's really a good idea?
That's all I've got for now. Don't forget to register to vote.. deadlines in many states are as soon as Saturday. Don't wait until it's too late! REGISTER NOW!
