{"id":2877,"date":"2004-10-13T11:55:10","date_gmt":"2004-10-14T01:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/10\/13\/presidential-debate-3\/"},"modified":"2019-12-11T11:31:56","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T19:31:56","slug":"presidential-debate-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/10\/13\/presidential-debate-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential Debate #3"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:10057,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.c-span.org\\\/2004vote\\\/debates.asp?Cat=Current_Event&amp;Code=PresVP_04&amp;ShowVidNum=10&amp;Rot_Cat_CD=PresVP_04&amp;Rot_HT=206&amp;Rot_WD=&amp;ShowVidDays=100&amp;ShowVidDesc=&amp;ArchiveDays=365&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;},{&quot;id&quot;:10058,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/atrios.blogspot.com\\\/2004\\\/10\\\/debate-thread-first_13.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20060323203656\\\/http:\\\/\\\/atrios.blogspot.com\\\/2004\\\/10\\\/debate-thread-first_13.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/atrios.blogspot.com\\\/2004\\\/10\\\/debate-thread-first_13.html&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:10059,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.washingtonmonthly.com\\\/archives\\\/individual\\\/2004_10\\\/004915.php&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.washingtonmonthly.com\\\/archives\\\/individual\\\/2004_10\\\/004915.php&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:10060,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/brokengoalie.typepad.com\\\/eyv\\\/2004\\\/10\\\/damn_internets.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:8822,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941.10000002&amp;subid=0&amp;type=4&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:10061,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DKeoki%2526albumTerm=Ego-Trip%2526songTerm=Wicked%26partnerId%3D30&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:7152,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DKeoki%26partnerId%3D30&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:10062,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DKeoki%2526albumTerm=Ego-Trip%26partnerId%3D30&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Almost time for tonight&#8217;s Presidential debate, the last of this election season&#8217;s round. Will Bush actually look like a President? Or, more likely, will we get to see him stumble and fall yet again?<\/p>\n<p>As before, I&#8217;ll be watching on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.c-span.org\/2004vote\/debates.asp?Cat=Current_Event&amp;Code=PresVP_04&amp;ShowVidNum=10&amp;Rot_Cat_CD=PresVP_04&amp;Rot_HT=206&amp;Rot_WD=&amp;ShowVidDays=100&amp;ShowVidDesc=&amp;ArchiveDays=365\" title=\"C-SPAN: 2004 Presidential Debates\">C-SPAN<\/a>, and will update this post with my usual random babbling after the debate&#8217;s done with.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Quiet room right now, waiting for things to get started. Always the most entertaining bit. ;)<\/p>\n<p>And we&#8217;re off. Bob Schieffer is moderating. Same rules as ever, blah blah. Tonight&#8217;s topic is domestic affairs (I thought we took care of <em>that<\/em> in the Clinton era&#8230;).<\/p>\n<p>Bush and Kerry have taken the stage.<\/p>\n<p>Interesting &#8212; this is the first time the split-screen has had Kerry on the left and Bush on the right. Fits, though, I suppose.<\/p>\n<p>That was a fairly dumb first question. &#8220;Will our children ever live in a world as safe and secure as we were when we grew up?&#8221; In other words, the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation, the Vietnam War, and so on. Sure, it was on other countries&#8217; soil instead of ours, but is that really &#8220;safe&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>So far, both answers have been more of the same. Bush already brought up Kerry&#8217;s &#8220;nuisance&#8221; quote (which I don&#8217;t really think was that bad, though it is terribly easily spun).<\/p>\n<p>Bush just said that he doesn&#8217;t think he ever said he wasn&#8217;t worried about Osama bin Laden &#8212; it should take all of about thirty seconds for people to find links to that particular quote. [Update:]{.underline} <a href=\"http:\/\/atrios.blogspot.com\/2004\/10\/debate-thread-first_13.html\" title=\"Debate thread the first\">Bingo<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonmonthly.com\/archives\/individual\/2004_10\/004915.php\" title=\"GAFFE WATCH...\">bingo<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/brokengoalie.typepad.com\/eyv\/2004\/10\/damn_internets.html\" title=\"Damn Internets\">bingo<\/a>. Told ya.<\/p>\n<p>Oh &#8212; we&#8217;re working with Canada to get enough flu vaccine. This must be a <em>different<\/em> Canada than the third-world Canada that Bush was so worried about allowing to flood the US market with unsafe foreign drugs last week.<\/p>\n<p>Kerry&#8217;s on about health insurance. Feels to me like he&#8217;s floundering &#8212; what does this have to do with the flu vaccine shortage? Gotta admit, Bush at least answered the question.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard for me to tell on the RealVideo stream, but Prairie&#8217;s commenting that Kerry doesn&#8217;t look healthy &#8212; pale, and bags under his eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Damn those Chinese ceiling fans. If it weren&#8217;t for them, we&#8217;d all be in better shape. (From Prairie: &#8220;designed for short people, so they hang down too low on our american ceilings&#8230; all those decapitations are getting depressing&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Okay, Bush <em>has<\/em> to have an earpiece &#8212; no way he&#8217;s remembering all those numbers, and he&#8217;s not glancing down at notes that I can see. (This is only half-serious, btw.) Knowing exactly how many times Kerry voted on all these items?<\/p>\n<p>The best way to keep jobs in America is to make sure the education system works. While I&#8217;m sure that&#8217;ll help, how about closing the loopholes that have so many companies outsourcing their work overseas?<\/p>\n<p>Interesting question on whether it&#8217;s fair to blame the administration for all job losses. Kerry started fairly well &#8212; even admitting that he can&#8217;t stop all outsourcing. He keeps coming back to what Bush has done wrong, though&#8230;and by the time he gets through those points (and he mentions as many as possible each time), he doesn&#8217;t really end up saying much about what he&#8217;s actually going to <em>do<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Bush: &#8220;My opponent says we&#8217;re spending the Government&#8217;s money. No, we&#8217;re spending <em>your<\/em> money.&#8221; No shit. (Yes, I&#8217;m taking that out of context. Whee.)<\/p>\n<p>Interesting: &#8220;Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gaaaah &#8212; I can&#8217;t type fast enough while listening to keep up with Bush. He actually started well enough, with a quick &#8220;I don&#8217;t know&#8221; for the actual question (I don&#8217;t like his answer, but I can accept it), and professing to respect people&#8217;s rights. But then he went on and on about his proposed Constitutional Amendment and his rationale behind it.<\/p>\n<p>Kerry&#8217;s actually answering the question &#8212; &#8220;It&#8217;s not a choice.&#8221; He&#8217;s still against gay marriage, but for &#8220;property rights&#8221;. Sigh.<\/p>\n<p>This is one of the best things I hear Kerry say: &#8220;I believe that I can&#8217;t legislate my beliefs on someone else.&#8221; (Paraphrased.)<\/p>\n<p>Bush started blinking faster when Kerry started quoting Bible verse.<\/p>\n<p>Bush dropped his &#8220;culture of life&#8221; phrase again. Basically, he took this and went right into the abortion question. Abstinence programs&#8230;dammit, nice idea, doesn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n<p>Bush, in response to a question on who bears responsibility for medicare cost increases: &#8220;Gosh, I sure hope it&#8217;s not the administration.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What? Medicine doesn&#8217;t use IT? Hospitals are in the technological dark ages? I had no idea&#8230;I must have missed the leeches last time I had blood drawn.<\/p>\n<p>Dammit, Kerry &#8212; again, he&#8217;s not answering the question &#8212; that is, <em>how<\/em> he&#8217;s going to pay for his health care plan. It sounds like a good plan, but where is the money going to come from?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve gotta admit, Bush is doing better this time &#8212; still stumbling over his words from time to time, but he&#8217;s managing to keep his anger in check so far.<\/p>\n<p>Each of them keep saying that the other can&#8217;t handle money for crap, but neither of them are really saying where the money they want to spend is realistically going to come from.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, apparently all the money Kerry is ever going to need is going to come from rolling back the Bush tax cut for people who earn over \\$200k\/year. Gotta admit, I question that.<\/p>\n<p>Just for the record, it&#8217;s only in the past few years &#8212; I <em>think<\/em> starting with the Bush administration, but admittedly, it <em>may<\/em> have started with Clinton (I can&#8217;t remember off the top of my head) &#8212; that I&#8217;ve been owing money on my taxes. It&#8217;s awfully hard for me to take Bush seriously when he says that the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income earners when I keep owing more money each year.<\/p>\n<p>Nice &#8220;spirit fingers&#8221; from Kerry when talking about fingerprint identification (bonus points if you can identify the movie that&#8217;s from).<\/p>\n<p>Kerry&#8217;s fired up on the minimum wage\/equal wage question &#8212; this is more animated than I&#8217;ve seen him yet tonight.<\/p>\n<p>Why is Bush suddenly on No Child Left Behind? He blew right past minimum wage.<\/p>\n<p>Bush really did duck and weave to avoid coming out and saying that he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade (and good for Kerry for pointing that out).<\/p>\n<p>But where are the people going to come from, Kerry? If we don&#8217;t reinstate the draft, and military recruitment is dropping, how are we going to fix that to get troops on the rotations they should be on? We know that it&#8217;s Bush&#8217;s fault, but how are you going to fix it?<\/p>\n<p>Of <em>course<\/em> the soldiers you talked to had high spirits, Bush, you and your handlers won&#8217;t let a dissenting opinion within a hundred feet of you.<\/p>\n<p>Bush: &#8220;The best way to prevent people causing crimes with guns is to prosecute them <em>after<\/em> they commit the crime.&#8221; He also admitted that he didn&#8217;t encourage the passing of the assault weapons ban because he was told it wasn&#8217;t going to go anywhere &#8212; but couldn&#8217;t he have at least tried to encourage moving it along?<\/p>\n<p>Good, Kerry made that same point.<\/p>\n<p>Did someone tell Bush that education was the focus, or a hot-button issue, or something? That seems to be all he can talk about tonight. He&#8217;s turning every question, no matter how unrelated, into being about education.<\/p>\n<p>Ooooh &#8211; Bush got directly asked how much his faith plays into his policy decisions. &#8220;I never want to impose my religion upon anybody else.&#8221; Somehow, that&#8217;s <em>really<\/em> hard to believe. &#8220;Armies of Compassion?&#8221; What is that? Afghanistan&#8217;s freedom is a gift from the Almighty. Y&#8217;know&#8230;I&#8217;m not anti-religious by any means, but Bush is just creepy. He&#8217;s <em>too<\/em> religious &#8212; everything ties into it.<\/p>\n<p>Not entirely sure what I think of Kerry&#8217;s response, simply because my video feed went all wonky and I lost a good amount of it.<\/p>\n<p>From Prairie: &#8220;Bush is NOT married to a strong woman&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Last question and Bush has suddenly turned the &#8220;folksy charm&#8221; on strong, as he talks about his wife. I don&#8217;t like him, but I have to admit, he does do this well, and I can see why people find him so personable.<\/p>\n<p>Ack &#8212; lost some of Kerry&#8217;s answer there. Heard laughter afterwards, but that was about it.<\/p>\n<p>Closing statements, Kerry&#8217;s first.<\/p>\n<p>I do wish that Kerry could say &#8220;idea&#8221; instead of &#8220;ideer&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Kerry&#8217;s summing up everything&#8230;and, well, it&#8217;s all the same stuff we&#8217;ve been hearing through all the debates.<\/p>\n<p>This is a first &#8212; Bush actually tried to paint himself as an optimist. Other than that, same ol&#8217; same ol&#8217;, just a slightly smaller dose of &#8220;vote for me or die&#8221; mixed in.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s it.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve got to admit, Bush did a lot better this time than he did in the first two&#8230;and Kerry seemed more of the &#8220;old Kerry&#8221; to me &#8212; but maybe that&#8217;s just because he looked so much better in comparison to the fumbling Bush of the last two debates. Overall, this debate wasn&#8217;t <em>nearly<\/em> as clear-cut a win for Kerry as I thought either of the prior two were. Shame, really, as things are still looking really close.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve never hid the fact that I&#8217;m not a huge Kerry fan, and if each of the three debates had been like this one, I&#8217;d be even more worried than I am now. Still, there&#8217;s no <em>way<\/em> you could get me to vote for Bush, and I refuse to waste my vote on a third-party candidate, so Kerry it is.<\/p>\n<p>As long as Bush gets booted out of office, I&#8217;ll be happy, and we&#8217;ll see where things go from there.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&#38;offerid=78941.10000002&#38;subid=0&#38;type=4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" width=\"61\" height=\"15\" alt=\"iTunes\" src=\"http:\/\/ad.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/show?id=xLsJkztrnNY&#38;bids=78941.10000002&#38;subid=0&#38;type=4&#38;gridnum=-1\"><\/a> &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&#38;offerid=78941&#38;type=3&#38;subid=0&#38;tmpid=1826&#38;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DKeoki%2526albumTerm=Ego-Trip%2526songTerm=Wicked%26partnerId%3D30\">Wicked<\/a>&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&#38;offerid=78941&#38;type=3&#38;subid=0&#38;tmpid=1826&#38;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DKeoki%26partnerId%3D30\">Keoki<\/a> from the album <em><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&#38;offerid=78941&#38;type=3&#38;subid=0&#38;tmpid=1826&#38;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DKeoki%2526albumTerm=Ego-Trip%26partnerId%3D30\">Ego-Trip<\/a><\/em> (1997, 7:00).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost time for tonight&#8217;s Presidential debate, the last of this election season&#8217;s round. Will Bush actually look like a President? Or, more likely, will we get to see him stumble and fall yet again? As before, I&#8217;ll be watching on C-SPAN, and will update this post with my usual random babbling after the debate&#8217;s done 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-2877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877","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=2877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}