Bush won!!??? What's that you say!??? What were you watching??

Kerry was obviously quite intelligent, had the facts and figures right at his fingertips, and he was highly articulate. He was very much on top of it when it came to fielding Bush's continuing attempts to characterizing him as a "flip-flopper" and sending "mixed messages," which, any thinking person who has been paying attention at all knows is not the case.

Bush was pretty much as I expected. He kept beating on the same points, apparently hoping that mere repetition would turn them into the truth—or, at least, convince people they were true. He was more articulate than I expected him to be (after having seen him lose it under pressure a few times at press conferences), but he did find himself with nothing much to say a few times. Long pauses where he was obviously at a loss, then he came back by simply repeating what he had said before. It was during these long pauses that I wondered (as Mickey191 suspected) if he were listening to Cheney or Rove on an earphone. For a former New Englander (before the Bush family moved to Texas, they lived in Connecticut), he did rely a lot on his "good ol' boy" persona. Kept right on droppin' those Gs.

I think the two most devastating points Kerry made were:   1) when we needed money to spend on genuine homeland security (e.g., inspecting container ships entering seaports, buttress up first responders to disasters such as police and fire departments, etc.), Bush blew it on massive tax cuts for the wealthy and further pooped it away on "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time"; and second, driving that point home when he quoted the remark that invading Iraq in response to 9/11 would be like FDR invading Mexico after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

When Kerry pointed out that Osama bin Ladin and al Quaeda were the attackers, not Saddam Hussein, Bush responded with an exasperated "I know that!" That contradicts the propaganda he managed to drum into some 60% of the population that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks by repeating "The Big Lie." And it left unanswered the question as to why he didn't allow the troops to finish the job in Afghanistan, left the job to the Afghani warlords, and sent the troops into Iraq. Iraq might have become a problem eventually, but it was an entirely different problem, and far less pressing than tracking down as many of the terrorists as possible. And he furthermore cut off dialogue with North Korea and Iran (and my interpolation), scaring Kim Jung Il into deciding to build up a nuclear arsenal and quite possibly inspiring the Iranians to go for nukes as well, by demonstrating that he, Bush, was perfectly willing to preemptively invade any country that, in his mind, might eventually constitute a threat.

I watched Kerry make mince-meat of Bush, but I must admit I was pleasantly surprised to find that the post-debate quick-polls actually agreed that Kerry had won. I'm looking forward to the town hall style debate and the debate on domestic policy. Also the Edwards-Cheney debate.

They may be stage managed, but fortunately they are not so restricting that there isn't plenty of room for genuine debate.

Don Firth

P.S.: Looks like Herman Munster? Okay, fine. I don't care it he looks like Quasimodo. The man has a brain and he uses it. That's what counts. He doesn't just blunder on like a headless chicken.