Some Thoughts About the Third Debate
1. This was Bush's best debate this campaign. That's the good news AND the bad news for the Bush camp.
Of course, John Kerry won again, but because Bush did better than he had previously, his supporters will claim it as a win for him -- kind of like an award for "Most Improved Camper."
2. Although he largely managed to control his scowls and petulant facial expressions, Bush still seemed crabby and querulous during much of the debate. After hearing some of the questions and some of Kerry's answers, Bush appeared stunned and royally ticked, like it was an act of treason to be asking him, the President, to respond to such things.
3. PAYGOO PAYGOO. It's the capital of American Samoa.
4. George apparently still thinks he's running against Ted Kennedy, as demonstrated by the way he keeps dropping Ted's name into every issue.
5. Nobody tells Bush anything.
KERRY: Six months after he said Osama bin Laden must be caught dead or alive, this president was asked, "Where is Osama bin Laden?" He said, "I don't know. I don't really think about him very much. I'm not that concerned."We need a president who stays deadly focused on the real war on terror.
BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.
His handlers need to tell Bush more about his life in preparation for these things. You know, remind him of what he's said, what he's owned, etc., so he won't be surprised and react by denying what Kerry has claimed, and look like a bad liar as a result. "Need some wood" indeed.
6. What about the flu vaccine shortage?
BUSH: We're working with Canada to hopefully -- that they'll produce a -- help us realize the vaccine necessary to make sure our citizens have got flu vaccinations during this upcoming season.
But ... but ... my worry is, you know, that it looks like it's from Canada, but it might be from a Third World!!!
7. You're out of work because you're stupid and ugly.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?
BUSH: I'd say, Bob, I've got policies to continue to grow our economy and create the jobs of the 21st century. And here's some help for you to go get an education. Here's some help for you to go to a community college.
And the rest of the conversation would go something like this . . .
(I will supply the responses from Bob, the imaginary outsourced employee, to go along with the rest of Bush's actual answer.)
Bob: But Mr. President, I have an MBA. I was a manager at the business that was outsourced to India. Now you want me to go to community college??? What the heck is that all about?
BUSH: We want to help pay for you to gain the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century.
Bob: Like what? Hamburger engineering? Nursing Home Attendant Science? I was making $55,000 before your economic polices caused me to lose my job. You really think that learning a trade at community college is the answer for me?
BUSH: I went to Washington to solve problems. And I saw a problem in the public education system in America. They were just shuffling too many kids through the system, year after year, grade after grade, without learning the basics.
Bob: You're suggesting that I didn't learn how to read and write when I was in elementary school, and THAT'S why I'm out of work? No offense, sir, but I'm pretty sure I can read and write better than you can. So, I don't think pushing "No Child Left Behind" really addresses my situation.
BUSH: No, education is how to help the person who's lost a job. Education is how to make sure we've got a workforce that's productive and competitive.
Bob: So, it's your position that it's the stupid, unproductive, and noncompetitive workforce's fault that it can't get jobs. Thanks, Mr. President. Thank you so very much.
BUSH: (now addressing the moderator and pretending that Schieffer was the one who was talking to Bob, because Bush can't stand a jobless person who isn't properly humble) And so the person you talked to, I say, here's some help, here's some trade adjustment assistance money for you to go a community college in your neighborhood, a community college which is providing the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century. And that's what I would say to that person.
Bob: (muttering in the background while the Secret Service hauls him away) Yeah, community colleges provide the skills to fill the jobs of the 21st century. That's where people like me should go. Of course, people like George here, and Jenna and NotJenna, go to Yale and Harvard and UT, since they don't NEED any damned job skills, because THEY have family connections. So, I should go to community college and learn A/C repear because George failed at yet another job. This is the WORST motitational speech I've ever been subjected to. You suck, sir!
8. During his response to Bob, one can't look away from the fleck of spittle on the right side of the President's mouth -- it remained there throughout his answer. Also, the left side of his mouth seemed lower than the right. Has he had a stroke, like the Atrios commenters suggest? Or was it some other neurological problem? (Remember all the twitching, blinking, and short bursts of disconnected speech from last time before you answer)? Or is his condition a result of an over dose of ritalin or something? Nobody in the media is saying.
9. Kerry responds to the Bob situation:
KERRY: I want you to notice how the president switched away from jobs and started talking about education principally. Let me come back in one moment to that, but I want to speak for a second, if I can, to what the president said about fiscal responsibility. Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country.
A good line. People in the audience laugh, even though they've been threatened with death for responding in any way during the debate.
But notice Mr. Bush: he takes a swig of water at this point -- a drink to help him deal with a difficult and frustrating situation. Old habits die hard.
10. And here's Kerry's response to Bush's claim that Kerry's "record does not match his rhetoric" (the phrase of the day), and that "He voted to increase taxes 98 times and to bust the budget 277 times."
KERRY: Bob, anybody can play with these votes. Everybody knows that I have supported or voted for tax cuts over 600 times.
Yes, anybody can play with those votes (since there usually numerous votes for the same bill, some with riders for "increased funding for the perverted arts" and some without). But the Bush campaign never thought that anybody would know that.
KERRY: But you know why the Pell Grants have gone up in their numbers? Because more people qualify for them because they don't have money. But they're not getting the $5,100 the president promised them. They're getting less money. We have more people who qualify. That's not what we want.
[At this point Bush jumps in, seeming to interrupt Kerry; he certainly wasn't given the floor by the moderator. He also seems angry and mean -- maybe it WASN'T water in that glass he was sipping a moment ago.]
BUSH: Senator, no one's playing with your votes. You voted to increase taxes 98 times. When they voted -- when they proposed reducing taxes, you voted against it 126 times.
Was it 126 or 227 times he voted against reducing taxes -- I guess when you are just throwing stuff out there, it's hard to keep track. But at least he's not, like that tool Sean Hannity did after the first debate, claiming that Kerry raised your taxes over 200 times.
11. Is homosexuality a choice?
BUSH: You know, Bob, I don't know. I just don't know.
Meaning: "If I say it is a choice, my core supporters, the religious nuts, will be on me like a ton of bricks. And if I say it isn't, the moderates will think I'M a religious nut. Better say I don't know -- nobody can prove that I do."
KERRY: We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice.
How DARE Senator Kerry claim that Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian?! As Mort Kondracke said in the Fox after-debate spin, the "outing" of Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter was designed to weaken the Bush/Cheney campaign in the eyes of right-wing voters who might not know about the Vice President's daughter's sexual preference. Because, you know, right-wing voters would be shocked and appalled to learn that Dick Cheney allowed his daughter to be a lesbian.
Charles Krauthammer said that Kerry is going to have to apologize for his remark, which was obviously done NOT to appeal to gay voters. Mort described it as "dirty politics."
So, why did Kerry mention Mary Cheney in response to a question about whether homosexuality is a choice? (A question which Bush had said he didn't know the answer to, btw.) Presumably to show voters that George Bush would rather claim that the daughter of his VP chose a lifestyle that won't let her marry her partner, rather than challenge the prejudices of some of his constituency.
Yeah, it's about character.
12. Who's responsible for rising insurance costs?
BUSH: Gosh, I sure hope it's not the administration.
Gosh, Wally, I hope it's not either -- but it is it! (Well, it's part of the problem.)
There's a -- no, look, there's a systemic problem. Health care costs are on the rise because the consumers are not involved in the decision-making process. Most health care costs are covered by third parties. And therefore, the actual user of health care is not the purchaser of health care. And there's no market forces involved with health care.
What I think our young friend is saying is that insurance costs are rising because the greedy, irresponsible insured people are not the ones who have to pay for their medical bills, so they go out and get frivolous open-heart surgeries and take unnecessary insulin injections and such.
13. Bush has been reading InstaPundit and his ilk too much, and now accepts their credo that the mainstream media isn't to be trusted when they criticize him.
BUSH: In all due respect, I'm not so sure it's credible to quote leading news organizations about -- oh, never mind.
14. Should the minimum wage be raised?
Shorter Kerry: Yes.
BUSH: But let me talk about what's really important for the worker you're referring to. And that's to make sure the education system works. It's to make sure we raise standards. Listen, the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act when you think about it.
Yes, NCLB is answer to everything!
15. Some questions don't deserve a response.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, I want to go back to something Senator Kerry said earlier tonight and ask a follow-up of my own. He said -- and this will be a new question to you -- he said that you had never said whether you would like to overturn Roe v. Wade. So I'd ask you directly, would you like to?
BUSH: What he's asking me is, will I have a litmus test for my judges? And the answer is, no, I will not have a litmus test. I will pick judges who will interpret the Constitution, but I'll have no litmus test.
Wow, it sounds like Bush was getting snippy with Schieffer, whose a family friend and all. He hates the question that much.
And remember, Bush could have had 2 minutes on this question. Instead, he took, like, 15 seconds -- he obviously does NOT want to talk about this issue. He proves this by grasping his glass and having another drink.
16. But what he DOES want to talk about is No Child Left Behind, the answer to classism, sexism, and racism.
Let me set this clip up for you: Kerry has just talked about single mothers and working parents who are being hurt because the minimum wage hasn't been raised in years. "One percent of America got $89 billion last year in a tax cut, but people working hard, playing by the rules, trying to take care of their kids, family values, that we're supposed to value so much in America -- I'm tired of politicians who talk about family values and don't value families."
This is the major part of Bush's response:
BUSH: He talked about the unemployed. Absolutely we've got to make sure they get educated. He talked about children whose parents don't speak English as a first language? Absolutely we've got to make sure they get educated. And that's what the No Child Left Behind Act does.
So, apparently No Child Left Behind is going to call back all these parents who only make $5.85 an hour and make go back to school and learn English and math. That's WAY more helpful than raising wages.
Oh, and girls, as a group, do better than boys. So, how is No Child Left Behind going to help women's earning power equal that of men? TIt just will, okay! That is the mystery and beauty of NCLB.
17. What about the "backdoor draft"?
BUSH: The best way to take the pressure off our troops is to succeed in Iraq, is to train Iraqis so they can do the hard work of democracy, is to give them a chance to defend their country, which is precisely what we're doing. We'll have 125,000 troops trained by the end of this year.
I remember going on an airplane in Bangor, Maine, to say thanks to the reservists and Guard that were headed overseas from Tennessee and North Carolina, Georgia. Some of them had been there before. The people I talked to their spirits were high. They didn't view their service as a back-door draft. They viewed their service as an opportunity to serve their country.
I.e., If those damned troops would just work harder and win the war, we wouldn't have to keep extending their enlistments. And anyway, Bush remembers going on an airplane, and nobody he talked to that day complained about anything, so all the reservists and enlisted people are HAPPY to be dying after their tour should have ended. If they weren't, they would have said so.
18. Why didn't Bush work to extend the ban on assault weapons?
BUSH: Actually, I made my intentions -- made my views clear. I did think we ought to extend the assault weapons ban, and was told the fact that the bill was never going to move, because Republicans and Democrats were against the assault weapon ban, people of both parties.
I.e., All the other kids were for ending the ban, so what could I, the President do about it? And anyway, the NRA said it was a stupid ban, and they know best about these things.
19. Do we still need EEO?
BUSH: But we ought to have an aggressive effort to make sure people are educated [...] That's the access I believe is necessary, is to make sure every child learns to read, write, add and subtract early, to be able to build on that education by going to college so they can start their careers with a college diploma.
Like I said previously, NCLB is the answer to all of life's difficult problems. It slices, it dices, it's a floor wax AND a dessert topping. It's the only domestic policy you need!
20. Kerry tops Bush's "Freedom is a gift from the almighty" with "Everything is a gift from the almighty." This drives Bush to drink once again. But hey, we'll always have "Freedom on the March."
21. Nothing is Bush's fault. It's Clinton's, bad CEO's, and the terrorists' fault that the economy went down the tubes and we lost jobs. And it's Washington's fault that Bush is a divider, not a uniter.
BUSH: My biggest disappointment in Washington is how partisan the town is. I had a record of working with Republicans and Democrats as the governor of Texas, and I was hopeful I'd be able to do the same thing.
But NOOOO!
But Washington is a tough town. And the way I view it is there's a lot of entrenched special interests there, people who are, you know, on one side of the issue or another and they spend enormous sums of money and they convince different senators to taut their way or different congressmen to talk about their issue, and they dig in.
Yeah, it's all the lobbyists fault. Poor Mr. Bush went to town, and wasn't able to change anything. That's why he needs another four more years -- because THIS time he can make a difference!
Anyway, that's most of what I got out of the debate. But then, I only watch these things for amusement purposes.
3:44:56 AM 
|
