{"id":2864,"date":"2004-10-08T11:51:27","date_gmt":"2004-10-09T01:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/10\/08\/presidential-debate-2\/"},"modified":"2019-12-11T09:44:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T17:44:02","slug":"presidential-debate-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/10\/08\/presidential-debate-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential Debate #2"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:10084,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.c-span.org\\\/2004vote\\\/debates.asp?Cat=Current_Event&amp;Code=PresVP_04&amp;Rot_Cat_CD=PresVP_04&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.c-span.org\\\/2004vote\\\/debates.asp?Cat=Current_Event&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>The Presidential debate starts in about ten minutes. As before, I&#8217;ll be watching it on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.c-span.org\/2004vote\/debates.asp?Cat=Current_Event&amp;Code=PresVP_04&amp;Rot_Cat_CD=PresVP_04\" title=\"C-SPAN: 2004 Presidential Debates\">C-SPAN&#8217;s internet feed<\/a>. Rambling, incoherent, stream of consciousness commentary to be posted once the debate is over with.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Introduction is going on, Charles Gibson moderating. Hmm&#8230;any bets on how (un)likely it is that someone will ask the \\$6000 question?<\/p>\n<p>Rules, rules, rules, yadda yadda.<\/p>\n<p>And the contenders enter the ring.<\/p>\n<p>For Kerry: &#8220;Why are you so wishy-washy?&#8221; (Paraphrased) Kerry: &#8220;The President has turned his campaign into a Weapon of Mass Distraction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re not doing the split-screen here that they were previously (since the candidates are able to get up and walk around), but in the few shots I&#8217;ve seen of Bush while Kerry is talking, he looks utterly lifeless &#8212; like he&#8217;s trying so hard not to react to what Kerry&#8217;s saying like he did in the first debate that he&#8217;s completely relaxed his face. Unfortunately, this now makes him look like he&#8217;s about to start drooling&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>How many times can Bush mention 9\/11 in a minute? He just got three in fifteen seconds without even trying.<\/p>\n<p>Bush: &#8220;Saddam could give WMD&#8217;s to Al-Quaida.&#8221; But Saddam and Al-Quaida weren&#8217;t dealing with each other (at least that&#8217;s what I remember). Not to mention that the latest reports say that the sole WMD programs in Iraq since 1991 were in Saddam&#8217;s head.<\/p>\n<p>Kerry didn&#8217;t let that one pass at all &#8212; brought up yesterday&#8217;s report on the non-existence of WMD&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>Bush keeps saying that other nations won&#8217;t follow a President who says &#8220;follow me into a war that is a mistake.&#8221; How about a President who asks, &#8220;would you help me fix the mistakes that were made?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bush keeps saying the same things over and over again &dmash; &#8220;global conflict&#8221;, &#8220;75 percent of Al-Quaida&#8221;, etc. He really doesn&#8217;t improvise well (or at least, he&#8217;s not now).<\/p>\n<p>Bush is actually <em>bragging<\/em> that he refused to talk to Palestine &#8212; because, of course, the best way to deal with a bad situation is to ignore it.<\/p>\n<p>Ugh &#8212; Kerry&#8217;s not answering the question on Iran, merely pressing that they were ignored while we went into Iraq. True, yes, but he&#8217;s not addressing what he&#8217;ll do if Iran does develop nuclear capabilities. It really bugs me when either Bush or Kerry do this.<\/p>\n<p><em>What?<\/em> The recent report on the non-existence of WMD&#8217;s showed that Saddam was deceiving the inspectors? What universe does Bush live in?<\/p>\n<p>Bush: &#8220;We&#8217;re not going to have a draft. Period. The all-volunteer army works.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Whoa &#8212; Bush just ramrodded right over the moderator. He&#8217;s <em>pissed<\/em> and showing it.<\/p>\n<p>Kerry: &#8220;If just the people in Missouri were one of the countries in the coalition, they&#8217;d be the third largest member of the coalition, behind the US and England.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Was that just a subtle jab from Kerry, almost blatantly calling Bush an idiot? Something along the lines of, &#8220;the most important thing to keep us from having another terrorist attack is intelligence.&#8221; (Very badly paraphrased, but you get my drift.) Got a laugh out of Prairie and I, at least.<\/p>\n<p>Again, Bush is taking a rebuttal without even letting the moderator approve it (this time during the question on Medicare and importing of drugs from Canada).<\/p>\n<p>Bush: &#8220;That&#8217;s what liberals do. They create government-sponsored health care.&#8221; And this is a bad thing?<\/p>\n<p>Question: &#8220;Please explain how the seven billion dollars in spending you&#8217;ve approved and not paid for is better than your opponent&#8217;s spending.&#8221; Bush: &#8220;There&#8217;s a deficit because there was a recession.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nice one from the moderator: &#8220;I&#8217;ve heard both of you claim that you&#8217;ll halve the deficit in the next four years. I haven&#8217;t heard one thing from either of you on how you&#8217;re going to do that.&#8221; Unfortunately, they each have only thirty seconds to reply to that, and not much is really being said (aside from some blistering numbers from Kerry).<\/p>\n<p>Nice job by Kerry on giving the overview of his tax plan, especially with the ending mention that probably on three people &#8212; the President, himself, and the moderator &#8212; would likely be effected.<\/p>\n<p>Watching Bush try to defend his environmental record should be entertaining. He&#8217;s going to increase wetland &#8220;by three million&#8221;. Three million what? &#8220;I&#8217;m a good steward of the land.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I think Bush just grabbed another rebuttal without permission from the moderator &#8212; though he may have gotten a nod or something non-verbal. For myself, the mere fact that Bush is trying to claim that he&#8217;s an environmentalist is just (sadly) funny.<\/p>\n<p>Bush is trying to defend the Patriot Act, and he&#8217;s stating that he hopes we don&#8217;t actually feel like our rights are eroding. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think the Patriot Act abridges your rights at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The question on embryonic stem cell research was actually more interesting than I thought it would be when the questioner got started. Kerry&#8217;s handling it well, too &#8212; Bush just summed up his whole position with &#8220;embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of life.&#8221; Admittedly, this is a really touchy issue, but <em>man<\/em> am I more on Kerry&#8217;s side here.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhat ironic that Bush is so concerned with preserving life by denying stem cell research, yet he&#8217;s managed to get us into the quagmire in Iraq. There somewhere over 1000 dead soldiers who might question Bush&#8217;s ability to preserve life.<\/p>\n<p>I <em>like<\/em> Kerry&#8217;s answer regarding the question of what type of Supreme Court judge he&#8217;d appoint.<\/p>\n<p>And again, <em>good<\/em> answer from Kerry on the abortion question &#8212; stating that he won&#8217;t let his personal beliefs on matters of faith infringe on people&#8217;s rights.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s so hard to listen to Bush blather on and oversimplify things.<\/p>\n<p>Bush just got asked to proved three decisions he made that he later found out were wrong, and what he did to correct them. Instead, he&#8217;s declaring that he was right in going into Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. &#8212; asserting that those were <em>not<\/em> mistakes. Entirely avoiding the question. &#8220;I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I don&#8217;t want to name &#8217;em. Don&#8217;t want to embarrass them on national TV.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bush&#8217;s reaction to Kerry&#8217;s &#8220;mistake&#8221; statement was beautiful. Kerry started with, &#8220;I made a mistake in how I talked about the \\$87 billion&#8230;&#8221; and Bush grinned, chuckled, and laughed. When Kerry continued with, &#8220;&#8230;President Bush made a mistake going into Iraq,&#8221; Bush&#8217;s head whipped around to glare at Kerry. That was <em>not<\/em> a happy man.<\/p>\n<p>And we&#8217;re done.<\/p>\n<p>Bush definitely handled himself better than he did during the first debate &#8212; but &#8220;better&#8221; still isn&#8217;t anywhere near Kerry&#8217;s confidence and collected manner, especially with the times when Bush forced his way into a rebuttal. Kerry didn&#8217;t seem as aloof as he&#8217;s seemed to in the past, either &#8212; he&#8217;s been getting some good training or practice in over the months of campaigning, apparently.<\/p>\n<p>In the end&#8230;Bush&#8217;s better behavior means that it&#8217;s not as much of a rout as the first debate was, but I&#8217;d still definitely give the nod to Kerry.<\/p>\n<p>Three debates down, one to go&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Presidential debate starts in about ten minutes. As before, I&#8217;ll be watching it on C-SPAN&#8217;s internet feed. Rambling, incoherent, stream of consciousness commentary to be posted once the debate is over with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-2864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}