BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Thursday, September 30, 2004
KERRY WON. But Bush wasn't bad. Thus
the first
debate between the two major-party
presidential candidates ended essentially in a draw. John Kerry was
far more crisp and articulate than George W. Bush, but Bush got his
points across, and made the best case he could for the war in
Iraq.
My first impression was that Kerry was
considerably better than Al Gore four years ago - but that Bush was
also much better than he was in 2000. Yes, Bush fumbled and
paused and looked down, and got a little peevish somewhere around the
30-minute mark. But if we've learned anything in the past four years,
it's that no one but us Bush-bashers cares.
So it comes down, essentially, to what those
elusive undecided voters are looking for. Polls still show a great
deal of discontent with Bush's presidency. If voters were looking for
a reason to switch to Kerry, then it doesn't matter how Bush fared
tonight. All that matters is that Kerry came across as presidential
and in control. But Bush, Dick Cheney, and company have succeeded in making this election as much about Kerry as Bush, which means that it's become almost a two-incumbent race. That would tend to negate any big boost Kerry might have otherwise gotten tonight.
Debate moderator Jim Lehrer, whose passivity
was such a great help to Bush four years ago, was so-so tonight. For
the most part, he asked the right questions, although in such a
bland, nonconfrontational way that it was easy for both candidates to
avoid danger zones and stick to their talking points. Lehrer was so
narrowly focused on Iraq that Kerry's and Bush's answers began to get
repetitious. By my reckoning, it wasn't until after 10 p.m. when
Lehrer finally asked about something other than Iraq or homeland
security, changing the topic to Iran's and North Korea's nuclear
problems. And even then, Kerry had already brought up those topics on
his own a couple of times.
I'll try to say something about the spin
tomorrow. Until then, a few random observations:
- The cutaways were hilarious. Kerry kept
looking around, taking notes, and at one point mouthing silently but
intently to someone who was apparently in his field of vision. Bush
stood stone-faced, his lips pursed as though he were pissed off that
he had to be there. Kudos to C-SPAN for sticking with the
double-podium view for the entire debate.
- Bush built his message on two wildly
disingenuous themes: that Kerry is somehow unpatriotic for
criticizing the war effort, and that the war in Iraq is part of the
war against terrorism. Fairly early in the debate, for instance, Bush
asked for a chance to respond to a Kerry charge and came back with
this:
BUSH: I don't see how you can lead
this country to succeed in Iraq if you say wrong war, wrong time,
wrong place. What message does that send our troops? What message
does that send to our allies? What message does that send the
Iraqis?
Bush returned to that theme on several
occasions during the course of the debate. Needless to say, you can't
run for president if you don't offer a critique of the incumbent's
foreign policy, but Bush espouses a Zell Miller Lite philosophy that
the president simply should be above criticism. Bush would like to
return to the 1940s and '50s, when politics "stopped at the water's
edge," as the old cliché used to go, and no one would openly
challenge the president's conduct of international affairs. Having
almost single-handedly created a foreign-policy disaster, Bush now
wants to win re-election by impugning the patriotism of anyone who
calls attention to that disaster.
As for the Iraq-terror connection, Kerry
repeatedly referred to the war in Iraq as a distraction from the war
on terror, observing correctly that Bush has far fewer troops in
Afghanistan, where there might actually be some hope of capturing
Osama bin Laden, than in Iraq. Bush's strategy, not surprisingly, was
to cast the war in Iraq as part of the war on terrorism -
frequently in starkly dishonest terms. For instance:
BUSH: I understand how hard it is to
commit troops. Never wanted to commit troops. When I was running -
when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I'd be doing that.
But the enemy attacked us, Jim, and I have a solemn duty to
protect the American people, to do everything I can to protect
us. I think that by speaking clearly and doing what we say and
not sending mixed messages, it is less likely we'll ever have to
use troops....
KERRY: Jim, the president just said
something extraordinarily revealing and frankly very important in
this debate. In answer to your question about Iraq and sending
people into Iraq, he just said, "The enemy attacked us." Saddam
Hussein didn't attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al Qaeda
attacked us. And when we had Osama bin Laden cornered in the
mountains of Tora Bora, 1000 of his cohorts with him in those
mountains. With the American military forces nearby and in the
field, we didn't use the best trained troops in the world to go
kill the world's number one criminal and terrorist. They
outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, who only a week earlier had
been on the other side fighting against us, neither of whom
trusted each other....
BUSH: First of all, of course I know Osama
bin Laden attacked us. I know that....
- Finally, somebody ought to stick a cattle
prod up CNN reporter David Ensor's rear end and make sure he's paying
attention the next time. In the post-debate analysis, he accused
Kerry of making a false statement - that weapons of mass destruction
are crossing the border into Iraq every day. Ensor sourly intoned
that he had no idea what Kerry was talking about, and that he
couldn't find anyone who did.
Okay, David. Pay attention. Read this as
slowly as you need to. Here is what Kerry said:
KERRY: This president just - I don't
know if he sees what's really happened on there. But it's getting
worse by the day. More soldiers killed in June than before. More
in July than June. More in August than July. More in September
than in August. And now we see beheadings. And we got weapons
of mass destruction crossing the border every single day, and
they're blowing people up. And we don't have enough troops
there.
In other words, the weapons of mass
destruction are people - the suicide bombers and other
terrorists who are crossing into Iraq and transforming the country
into a place of violence and chaos. Was Kerry even a little difficult
to understand? I don't think so. Yet Ensor all but accused him of
lying.
posted at 11:40 PM |
5 comments
|
link
5 Comments:
Hey Dan,
If Kerry won, then it wasn't a draw --it was a Kerry victory. National security was supposedly Bush's strongest suit, and his campaign picked it for the first debate 'cause they thought Bush could put finish Kerry off for good.
But Kerry outperformed Bush in every respect: command of the facts, substance, staying on offense, and (surprisingly) style.
Bush seemed truly uncomfortable and distracted; much less confident than in the 2000 debates. Dubya's advantage this past month has come entirely from raising Kerry's negatives with swift boat smears, "flip-flop" ads and the like --not from increased confidence in Bush.
Kerry did much tonight to dispel those stereotypes just by being smooth, clear and direct. As a result, he's right back in this race.
I wonder if Kerry really thinks of Arab terrorists as weapons of mass destruction? Very interesting if he does.
Kerry won each round on points, but no knockout. He brought up all the right facts, though sometimes awkwardly: first responders underfunded; port, chem and nuke plants allowed to set their own security compliance; reduced effort towards nonproliferation; Iraq as al-Qaeda recruiter. Bush's body language (and we know the spinners will get to that) flip flopped between snarky smirky "Can you believe this guy?" to grimacing "This guy is pissing me off." Most of his responses were "Certainty," "Resolute," "Hard Work." Bush did get in the maudlin first person story; not surprised he didn't bring up the mother who was arrested at a Laura event for T-shirt claiming Bush killed her son. I'm still puzzling about non sequitur response to Kerry claim that Osama is boosting recruiting by our presence in Iraq: "Osama can't dictate our policy."
KERRY WON. But Bush wasn't bad. Thus the first debate between the two major-party presidential candidates ended essentially in a draw.So which is it? Kerry or a draw? Utter fence-sitting. This is an extremely weak opening to any analysis; I get the impression you just want to be able to say you sided with the victor later on.
Dan wrote a good piece, as usual. But he and the other posters here did not really cover Bush's awful facial expressions, especially in the first half hour. He looked like a child getting scolded. I feel this will have as much of an impact as the content. This may be analagous to Nixon's debate in 1960, although Bush may still win the election.
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
