Further Thoughts

Bush said that tag line "Wrong war, wrong place at the wrong time" seven times. He tried to mash it into the gooey soft minds across the nation.

The manner in which Bush responds starts out pretty sharp but he slowly descends, he slumps, he shrugs, he blinks (I'd not noticed it the first time but had it pointed out via the MeFi thread), he shrinks a little more, he leans, he wants out, he wants the debate to end. He knows its not going well, he knows that Kerry has made good inroads.

Now that doesn't mean that Bush didn't make his points, he hit some decent responses, but then he fell back on his soundbites, again and again.

The Pearl Harbor attack leading to an assault on Mexico was priceless. It makes perfect sense to me. Go after bin Laden, pursue him until he is taken into custody. Then, then you might have been able to sell the country on Iraq.

But Bush's main failing in the war on terror is that he's lost sight of the prize, at least what should be the prize. Osama bin Laden. He's the one I want to see captured. It wouldn't really change my vote now, Bush has ably demonstrated his inability to lead the whole nation, he leads a portion.

Kerry's plan looks to all America

"It's necessary that we win" the war on terror from Bush. Really? I thought we were going all commit national suicide together and handover the keys to the country so the terrorists could move in and start driving 4 ton SUV's?

I was predisposed to looking more favorably on Kerry's performance rather than Bush's and I know that, even if I really tried, I wouldn't be able to overcome that bias. I wanted Kerry to perform, I wanted him to show some fire and he did.

He responded, he didn't use Vietnam overly, he mentioned it in response to Bush, I think he may have helped placate some damned angry vets. That line, "Don't confuse the war with the warriors, we did that once already." That is powerful and good stuff.

Where Bush says "bring to justice" Kerry says "kill", the in-no-uncertain-terms tone was well modulated. Some of the comments from that side (I absolutely hate referring to the Republican party as the right, its a filthy semantic trick) mention this and that Bush shouldn't whine about being President.

The United States of America does not have long term occupation of Iraq as a goal.

How many times does Bush say Hard Work, I know its Hard Work. Like he's been to war? Yeah, no, you haven't been in combat, Mr. Bush. You may think that you've been in combat but you haven't. And, for a guy who isn't working 40% of the time, I'm not sure you really know what Hard Work is even about.

The part where Kerry corrects Bush about who attacked us on 9/11 when Bush uses it as a justification for attacking Iraq, that was nice. Seeing Kerry get fired up and tell him, like he was almost scolding him, that Osama bin Laden attacked us, not Saddam Hussein.

Bush's response that, of course he knows it was Osama who attacked us (which, I think, was the first time he's actually said his name publicly in months), of course he knew it was Osama. As if that defeated Kerry's facts. You know it was Osama, had him cornered and, as Kerry put it, outsourced his capture to local warlords who were fighting US forces weeks before.

Excuse me? I've gotta go find out more about this. Did this really happen? Did the search in the Tora Bora mountains get given to the locals when we had troops in the area who could have done the job and taken Osama? Again, nice work, Mr. President.

I'm back off to read more reactions. Lots of good things to read and laugh because the Republicans are working to spin this and they're having a hard time finding some good traction.

The International Criminal Court stuff wasn't bad. Especially given that Bush frames it the right way, he makes it look like the court's sole purpose is to prosecute US soldiers (hmm, you mean like the fucks who tortured the prisoners?). But its not the court's sole purpose. I do need to read up more on it (before Savage rips me a freshie).

I enjoyed the debates quite alot. I enjoyed watching Bush blink and stumble for words and lose his thoughts and then slowly, slowly reboot and get going again. A man who thinks on his feet? Uhh, yeah, you know what, Uh-huh, I don't think so.

Whee! Politics are good fun!