Ok, so who won?

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan

I don't think that either was particularly impressive.

Bush both made the stupidest comment by referring to terrorists as "folks," and the sharpest comment by pointing out that Kerry's ideas are, shall we say, not exactly revenue neutral (i.e. "I don't know how Senator Kerry plans on paying...").

Kerry slipped up far more often than I would have expected and Bush had at least four instances of blank looks (i.e. "where the hell am I" type looks).

Who won? Neither.

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http://www.csmonitor.com/commentary/index.html

first, wtf is up with the forum? the freaking bar graphic of the poll makes the thread like 20 screens wide.

now, i think bush lost. especially in the first hour kerry performed very well and bush did worse than i think i would have done.

kerry really blundered, when he said, he as president would create 2 new divisions, so he can use them to play kofis policeman, sending them to dafur and whatever.

overall it was boring. i can sum up the whole debate in two lines

kerry: "my plans are smarter."
bush: "it is hard work, my opponent is inconsistent"

I think that both of them missed a large number of opportunities. Personally I thought the format was poor. Their inability to actually direct questions at each other constrained their responses to make the whole thing boring.

Kerry is a good debater, one of the best we've seen in a while, and Bush doesn't have that skill. Knowing that going in, I think that a tie says a lot for Bush and not so much for Kerry.

Really, substantively, I don't think we learned anything new. I still don't know what Kerry's plans are if he becomes President. I don't know how he thinks he'll get France or Germany or anyone else to get involved in Iraq. A few times he said Saddam was a threat, he had to be disarmed, but we rushed into the war. If that is the case, then why did he say a few months ago that given all that he knows now that he would still have gone into Iraq? Personally I was annoyed by Kerry going back to previous questions in an attempt to cover for his lack of a position on certain issues.

Bush didn't step up and show his successes in the world as forcefully as he should. He also didn't really have a strong answer for Iran (although I think he did well on North Korea). He also didn't have an answer for Darfour (neither did Kerry). Bush did appear to lose his train of thought a few times.

I'm really surprised at the networks. My understanding was that we were not supposed to see the candidate that was not speaking, but those camera angles from behind the candidates tended to show the ones not speaking at certain times and I think this was quite unfair to Bush (Kerry being the more experienced debater was better at remaining impassive during these times).

In the end, a tie is all I can give this one. Of course in most sports, a tie means the champion keeps his title....

-- Jeff

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan

i can assure you, those of my countrymen, who dont want to join the coalition in iraq under a president bush certainly will not change their mind and join the coalition under a president kerryoh, kerry had a plan for dafur, that is what he needs the 2 new divisions for, so he has enough troops to send military into sudan and all other troublespots on the globe, if need be unilaterally, and bring humanitarian relief.strange that rule must have been limited to the national tv, i watched it on cnn international and most of the time they showed it splitscreen with one candidate speaking and the other listening.

I suspected as much. This is not a negative statement, just one of fact. Kerry is dreaming if he thinks he's going to do what he says. Of course a lot of Americans might be gullible enough to believe that he can.

-- Jeff

__________________
"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan

I found Kerry to be much more relaxed and in control

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GIGGLES

I'm impressed that Kerry didn't snap halfway through the debate when Bush didn't want to answer one of his challenges, and instead simply repeated his "must stay firm, signal certainty no matter the situation, leader must not falter, blah, blah" speech as if that would be enough. That is, he mumbled something and then abruptly started repeating his lines from earlier in the debate. Strange stuff. I'm not often defensive about criticism in this regard, but I felt only eerily embarassed when watching Bush stumble through this time. And I was really hoping Bush would somehow shine through with whatever message he had in the end. But then Kerry put his finger on exactly the reason why I wanted that, when he said:

KERRY: "I mean, we can remember when President Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis sent his secretary of state to Paris to meet with DeGaulle. And in the middle of the discussion, to tell them about the missiles in Cuba, he said, "Here, let me show you the photos." And DeGaulle waved them off and said, "No, no, no, no. The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me."

How many leaders in the world today would respond to us, as a result of what we've done, in that way?"

Because even though I do not have any unchecked admiration for every aspect of the kind of foreign policy America has conducted through the years, I'm not blind to the many instances the world has benefitted from it. Nor do I think that the unilateral approach from the US has not been necessary on occation simply because the UN or Nato would never have agreed to do anything unless forced to. But for this to be acceptable, we must know that the US isn't taking us for a ride. That there really were compelling reasons to support the initially unilateral engagement. And now this trust has been abused too much. And Bush is not man enough to own up to it. Still, to my own somewhat great suprise, I find that I do not exactly feel like celebrating that the US has finally broken their "benevolent superpower" spell. In fact, I rather want it back. I don't think this will happen within the next eight years, however. No matter how much anyone would wish it.

You're German, right?

Germany in rethink on Iraq force deployment (link)

I guess they want to help Kerry out.

what the german secretary of defense said was: "At present I rule out the deployment of German troops in Iraq. In general, however, there is no one who can predict developments in Iraq in such a way that he could make a such a binding statement" (of course, nobody can predict the future, duh!)

but immediately after that story came out, chancellor schroeder phoned his secretary and chastized him, after that phonecall struck came out and said: "Es bleibt bei unserer Irakpolitik. Es wird keinen deutschen Soldaten auf irakischem Boden geben. Da hat sich die Haltung der Bundesregierung überhaupt nicht geändert." (our policy on iraq remains. there will be no german troops in iraq. the position of the federal government on this has not changed at all.) [link]

schroeder and his government even sent out their own statements to counter any speculations about germany wobbling on iraq: "Es wird keine deutschen Soldaten im Irak geben. So wie das in der Vergangenheit festgelegt ist, gilt das in Zukunft." (there will be no german soldiers in iraq, as it has been stated in the past, so it is valid in the future.) the whole administration has crept out of their holes to counter strucks 'wildly overinterpretated' answer. [link]