Second Presidential Debate Recap

This is not going to be nearly as long as the first debate recap because I'm just too tired, but I'll start off with this:

I thought the last question. asking Bush to admit three mistakes he'd made, was almost impossibly moronic and irresponsible. Even if we weren't engaged in a war it is probably not smart, foreign-policy wise, for a sitting president to admit that he's made major tactical or strategic boo-boos on national TV. And when you're just a few weeks out from a national election and your opponent is sitting right across from you, I fail to see that you have any obligation to provide him with ammunition.

What idiot allowed that question in? Oh... maybe it was this idiot.

On balance, I thought the debate was a near draw but I give the advantage to my man Shrubya.

He displayed more energy, warmth, and humor, connected with the audience several times, and managed to bring some facts to bear instead of the ubiquitous "I Have A Plan..." speech the Reverend John Kerry uses to inspire the faithful just before he passes the collection plate. Last night it occurred to me that we really should have had a Debate Drinking Game: chug every time Kerry says "I have a plan for that!". The entire blogosphere would have been blotto within 15 minutes.

A few other chug phrases:

- "He's distorted my record!"

- "That's not wishy-washy!"

- "That's not a flip-flop!"

It seems as though if you keep having to say things like that, there's a leak in the lifeboat.

Kerry really did remind me of Lurch several times: his demeanor was stiff and patrician, where Shrubya was more like Mohammed Ali - he floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee - not always as often or as quickly as he should have, but just often enough to keep Kerry off balance. When Kerry gets annoyed, his Boston Brahmin accent intensifies and he sounds even more annoyingly patronizing than usual, which works to Bush's advantage.

The guy can't help it - he's just not Joe Six-pack: his "I respect the morality that leads you to come to that ignorant back a** country position on fresh killed baby stem cells...", as papertiger so aptly put it, made that painfully apparent.

I didn't like the debate format at all - several questions should have been posed to both candidates. Or there should have been a rebuttal. I thought Bush did a fairly good job with the Patriot Act question, but Kerry's answer, although dishonest in the extreme, was damaging. If Bush had been allowed a rebuttal, he could have made the following points:

1. Sen. Kerry likes to paint the Act as a draconian tool of the Ashcroft Justice department. In fact, the Patriot Act was passed nearly unanimously by the Senate 98-1, and 357-66 in the House.

2. The White House has not objected to Congressional review and amendment of the Patriot Act - no law is perfect as drafted. To suggest otherwise is deplorable.

3. Sen. Kerry has changed position on the Act several times. Most people don't know that he had a hand in drafting the Patriot Act as it was originally written, which makes his later criticism of it both reprehensible and calculating in the extreme:

In 2001, Kerry in fact voted for the Patriot Act – parts of which he himself originally wrote. He said at the time that he was “pleased at the compromise we have reached on the anti-terrorism legislation as a whole.” “It reflects,” he said on the Senate floor, “an enormous amount of hard work by the members of the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. I congratulate them and thank them for that work.”

What does this mean in Kerryspeak? He was for it, before he was against it. Flash forward to election season. Mr. Kerry, erstwhile Defender of the Faith, has had a change of heart:

“We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night. So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft. That starts with replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time. I’ve been a District Attorney and I know that what law enforcement needs are real tools not restrictions on American’s basic rights.” (Sen. John Kerry, Remarks At Iowa State University, Iowa City, IA, 12/1/03)

OK, the law stinks. It must be scrapped and we need to start all over again. Well, at least he took a stand, right? Not so fast sports fans... Last night Mr. Kerry complained:

Now, the three things they try to say I've changed position on are the Patriot Act; I haven't. I support it. I just don't like the way John Ashcroft has applied it, and we're going to change a few things.

Well, if you were for it when it passed, then came out against it in December of 2001, then are for it again, I'd call that changing position, wouldn't you?

4. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, challenged the ACLU to provide her with evidence of abuses of the Patriot Act. They had none.

5. Even well-drafted laws are often executed imperfectly. Execution is independent of how a law is written. If there are defects in the way the law is drafted, that is a matter for Congress to address. If there are defects in the way the law is executed, that is a matter for the Executive Branch to address, not for the Patriot Act to be repealed. Idiot...

6. Many of the vaunted abuses and loopholes in the Patriot Act have come about due to riders attached by the Democrats.

I'm not going to go into any more detail on the debate - several other bloggers have done a great job dissecting the madness:

Pejmanesque saw pretty much the same things I did, as usual, and did a far better job of articulating it all.

Hindrocket liveblogged.

Interestingly, Deacon's wife, who is 'genuinely undecided', thought Bush did well. Hmmm...

Dale Franks, in a must-read post, explodes Kerry's Shinseki and Tora-Bora lies (something I've been meaning to get around to but have been too busy to). Thanks! How come no one ever asks what kind of schmuck hangs around for an entire year after Rumsfinger announces, "No, Mr. Shinseki, I expect you to die...". I remember that year (the Unit was at the Pentagon), and it was one of the most uncomfortable in memory. Sheesh - what was he trying to prove?

Steven Taylor: No serious gaffes on either side, and both stayed on message. Advantage: Shrubya.

- Cassandra