Something I wrote after the first debate
In the presidential debate, one of Bush's goals was to demonstrate that he is smart enough and has a sufficient command of the issues to be president. Bush has been preparing for this debate since May and Gore's initial challenge, an attack on Bush's tax cut - was a very obvious one that Bush should have known the answer to backwards and forwards. Bush's tax cut is his #1 issue and Gore's opening attack is one that is a part of his standard stump speech - "Under Governor Bush's tax cut proposal, he would spend more money on tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent than all of the new spending that he proposes for education, health care, prescription drugs and national defense, all combined."
So how does Bush defend his tax cut from this obvious attack? How does Bush demonstrate his smarts and command of the issues? By attacking the messenger! "Well, let me just say that obviously tonight we're going to hear some phony numbers about what I think and what we ought to do." He then rambles through a logic for the size of his tax cut, but he doesn't challenge the number and he totally ignores the charge that the wealthiest 1% will receive the greatest benefit from his proposals. It was like Bush had trained for a specific duel for 5 months, and when Gore made his first feint, Bush heaved himself on to Gore's blade.
Bush actually has a response to Gore's attack, but he uses it much, much later in the debate - "I also dropped the bottom rate from 15 percent to 10 percent, because, by far, the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder." Also "The facts are, after my plan, the wealthiest of Americans pay more taxes of the percentage of the whole than they do today." But those defenses come after he has accused Gore of using "phony numbers", of "running on Mediscare", of using "old-style Washington politics, of 'We're going to scare you in the voting booth.'", of using "fuzzy numbers". Because Bush didn't counter Gore's number with his own numbers, he gave the impression that Gore is right, that Gore knew more about Bush's plans than Bush did, and that the only justification that Bush had for his plans was to call Gore a liar.
In most of the accounts of the debate I say, Bush was deemed to have done well because he did not say any bloopers or make any noticeable gaffes. But how can you say he did well when he absolutely bungled his first challenge?
Note: I have never seen anywhere a write up of the personal attacks that Dubya used in the debate. For someone he claimed to be a uniter, not a divider, such negativism should have been a surprise. But of course, Dubya is a divider, not a uniter and the negative attacks in the debate were just a taste of what was to come.
9:29:50 PM 
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