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US presidential debates

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00:24 / 14.10.04

Jesus! Has Bush never heard "The buck stops here"??
Flu vaccine shortage? The British did it.
The war is going poorly? The generals did it.
We shouldn't be in Iraq? The intelligence agencies did it.

YOU ARE THE PRESIDENT! TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY!

00:53 / 14.10.04

Hm, funny you should say that!
In Debate 3 Bush was asked who's responsible for the currently abysmal state of US health care.
Bush actually laughed out loud and said (and I quote), " Well I sure hope it isn't the administration!"
And smirked that infuriating little smirk.

01:09 / 14.10.04

Bush just got in a good one, pointing out that Kerry voted against the first Iraq War, which most agreed passed the common sense trust test.

BUT, other than that, Bush has appeared weak, confused, lost, with a dopey smile on his face. Kerry has taken him to the floor SEVERAL TIMES so far.

I'd say the edge goes to Kerry, and now the debate is 80% over.

01:11 / 14.10.04

Kerry's statement right now on the AK-47/Assault Weapons Ban is eloquent and strong, and positively emanates common sense.

>> Bush actually laughed out loud and said (and I quote), " Well I sure hope it isn't the administration!"
And smirked that infuriating little smirk.

This was a real LOSING MOMENT for Bush. I loved it!!!

01:13 / 14.10.04

Kerry's hitting nice messages about women (equal pay, affirmative action) too.

Interesting how there are almost NO online polls asking 'who won the debate' now on this 3rd debate...not on any of the major news sites...guess they got tired of supporters of each candidate all voting immediately...

01:15 / 14.10.04

OK, Bush indirectly admits that he's never met with the NAACP, but DID HE MEET with the Black Congressional Caucus? Kerry says he didn't; Bush says he did. Fact checker-time!!

I'm glad Kerry went off on Bush's underfunded No Child Left Behind Act, and then emphasized after Bush's "Massachusetts liberal" rebuttal the $89 billion that the top 1% got in the tax cut and that SOME OF THAT MONEY COULD HAVE GONE TO EDUCATION!!!!

01:17 / 14.10.04

Bush on faith: "You're equally American if you choose to worship an Almighty or not!"

An Almighty what, dude?

Bush is even faltering on his 'I'm so religious' talk, and he's backing away from his hardcore conservative religious stance by saying TWICE "not everyone feels the way I do, you don't have to be religious in America".

He's gone off on "freedom" multiple times and even mentioned the famous phrase "HARD WORK" regarding Iraq!!!!

01:18 / 14.10.04

Kerry on faith: "Pres. Bush says freedom is a gift from God -- I say EVERYTHING is a gift from God."

NICE!!!!

01:18 / 14.10.04

Bush made some crack about how "it's not credible to be quoting leading news organizations...oh - never mind..." smirk smirk. It's that whole arrogant 'I'm untouchable' brazen defiance that just makes my blood boil. (Is it wrong how much I loathe this man? I have a visceral negative reaction to his face at this point....)

01:21 / 14.10.04

>> Bush made some crack about how "it's not credible to be quoting leading news organizations...oh - never mind..." smirk smirk.

No, it's not wrong. And this was another losing moment for Bush - a joke that fell flat on its face.

Kerry is making a really nice statement now about how polarized America is now.

01:25 / 14.10.04

Bush did make me (and even Kerry laugh) when he said the most important thing he's learned about the strong women in his life is "To listen to 'em!" It was a rare moment of sincerity -- of course, he needs to listen to them cause they tell him what to think. Along with Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, etc. etc. ....

01:33 / 14.10.04

Bush didn't say "God bless America" as EVERY POLITICIAN DOES AT THE END OF EVERY BIG SPEECH! He just said "God bless you." Weird...

01:38 / 14.10.04

Did I hear Kerry say "It's against the law to hire people illegally" ?

01:40 / 14.10.04

JOY OF JOYS!!!

msnbc.com poll currently shows Kerry winning the debate with 85%. Let's just hope it stays that strong...

Bush loses and nobody gets hurt.

01:44 / 14.10.04

Kerry matched Bush's humor and warmth on the 'strong women in your life' question, and it was very funny when he made allusion to his 2 marriages. Kerry's saying 'sometimes I take myself too seriously and my daughters remind me of that' was nice.

"The President lecturing me about fiscal responsibility is a bit like Tony Soprano lecturing me on law and order in this country." Tom Brokaw just said that was 'one of the better sound bites in the debate.

01:49 / 14.10.04

NBC's fact check just pointed out not only the non-outrageous context of his famous 'nuisance' quote, BUT ALSO that Brent Fucking Scocroft used the term in the same sense 2 years ago ('hopefully we can get terrorism down to a level where it's not a major threat to people's lives every day, more like a horrible nuisance').

NBC just fact checked Bush's statement that he never said he wasn't concerned about Bin Laden. Of course he said "I'm not too concerned about him"; many of us have seen it, it's on record, once it became clear Bin Laden wasn't an easy catch.

NBC also said Bush DID meet with the Congressional Black Caucus but not the NAACP. Kerry's accusation that Bush never met with the Congressional Black Caucus was wrong -- but hell, maybe we need some Democrats attacking with false facts the way Karl Rove and the Republicans always do!

01:50 / 14.10.04

>> Flu vaccine shortage? The British did it.

Yeah, Bush's answer on why the flu vaccine shortage happened and what we're going to do about it was really weak.

01:53 / 14.10.04

The #1 mostly-valid criticism (in my opinion) I hear about Kerry -- the numbers of his financial plans don't add up (esp. where he's going to pay for his health care plan, extra troops, etc.). And even some non-partisan think tanks have said so.

01:54 / 14.10.04

(Not to mention that Chiron, the company in England that stopped producing the vaccine, was an American company.)

Kerry missed an opportunity for a real zinger about Canadian flu vaccines coming from "a third world."

*

04:47 / 14.10.04

Please freep the following poll-- the reps are doing it; it's a game everyone can play! (I don't know if MSNBC can tell if you're voting from Britain. Let's find out!)
Who would you vote for?

13:07 / 14.10.04

Today's informal, unscientific Yahoo poll has Kerry winning by a lot --

>> Question: Who Won the Oct. 13 Presidential Debate?
323344 votes since Oct. 13

Bush 32% 103127 votes
Kerry 65% 209830 votes
Tie 4% 10387 votes

Lynn Cheney just said that she's mad at Kerry for invoking her daughter in the debate last night. Even I thought it was a little unnecessary for Kerry to do it; when Edwards did it it was borderline inappropriate but I thought he pulled it off well so it didn't come off like a cheap shot. But when Kerry went there last night I just thought "Nooo, you don't have to go there, you're strong on the issue, you don't need to go personal." Thankfully, Kerry at least got off it quick and spoke very eloquently about how being gay is not a choice, etc. etc., in sharp contrast to Bush.

The MSNBC poll linked above has Bush as the landslide winner if the election were held tomorrow. VOTE NOW!!!

14:15 / 14.10.04

www.cbsnews.com and www.foxnews.com now have polls that you can vote re: the debate last night.

CNN also has a report card you can vote on at:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/special/president/debates/press.pundits/

One pundit commented that while Bush normally has a good sense of humor, every time he attempted a joke last night, it fell flat.

14:24 / 14.10.04

And now, ladies and germs, a sampling of message board fun from the always-entertaining Aint It Cool News message boards on the 3rd debate, where Bush is referred to as “Leatherface” and “The Acid Chimp”:

>> Re: Bush: one of those "exaggerations" Comment:
Yeah, it was a funny line... but it's going to take the Democrats all of 10 minutes to dig up footage of Bush's March press conference where he did, in fact, say that he wasn't concerned about Bin Laden... and within 24 hours, it'll be an attack ad in a battleground state. As Cheney also learned, a zinger only works if your statement is actually true!

>> Bush really hates massachussets! -- the dude must have gotten some bad chowda!

>> Bush's Closing Remarks -
"We've been through a lot together over the last three and a half years..." Wait, is he trying to break up with us? But we were going to dump his ass!

>> "my wife speaks english better than I do" ...Did you hear the collective gasp of the audience when Bush said "at least people know what she is saying" ...the dude even knows he is dumb.

>> Hey guys! i just hacked into Bush's hidden receiver!
Right now, I'm telling him to scowl and evade the question . . . IT'S WORKING!!

>> Psychology studies show that frequent blinking and shrugging of shoulders indicate lying. Just type lying and shrugging of winking into a search engine and you'll get a lot of articles on it. What's funny is I just did it and Bush was mentioned twice in the results!! :-)

14:28 / 14.10.04

And a few more:

>> on the immigration discussion "...as long as an american is not willing to do the job.." What jobs? oooh, I get it, Mr. Bush... shit jobs.

(HunterWolf: I have to say I was amazed that Bush said "as long as an American is not willing to do the job [in question]" - when American people are poor, desperate and out of work trying to feed their families, are they really going to be turning jobs down left and right because the jobs are 'beneath them'???)

>> Did Bush have a stroke?!?!?
No seriously!! His mouth is all lop sided, and he keeps getting this white spit in the right corner of his mouth.

And people took great joy in reminding us all of Bush saying "the internets" in the second debate. Some Republicans pointed out that there are, in fact, several networks, but I doubt this is what Bush was referring to.

14:51 / 14.10.04

Here's the transcript.

Bush's answer on how to create more jobs was so out of touch and insulting -

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.

Admittedly I don't have stats on this, but from large amounts of anecdotal evidence in the press and in town here, the people losing their jobs and/or being outsourcing are largely not uneducated people who just need to go to community college! After all, high school grads are likely working in low-wage retail or food service positions that are rarely affected by downsizing. So either Bush is totally out of it, or he's telling an umemployed 45-year-old IT supervisor (or whatever) with a master's degree that her problem is solved by getting an associate's degree in heating and refrigeration.

14:58 / 14.10.04

I had the same thoughts, ibis - as I'm sure did many Americans.

16:37 / 14.10.04

Was anyone else utterly weirded out by the fact that they were dressed identically? Down to the flag pin on the left lapel and the red tie with small white spots in a grid pattern? Whenever they did a split screen and showed them both at once it looked rather surreal.

Of course, Kerry's clothes somehow looked nicer. Richer, crisper, less wrinkled. I guess he has a better tailor...

And what was that thing at the corner of Bush's mouth? A cold sore? I swear it looked like it was getting bigger throughout the debate. A Pinocchio effect maybe?

17:09 / 14.10.04

I did notice they were dressed the same with essentially the exact same tie. Weird...

17:25 / 14.10.04

Even the brief snatches I see of the debates make me want to smack The Chimp in his stupid, smirky mouth. They also make me marvel anew at the fact that 'liberal' is apparently a dirty word in the US.

19:48 / 14.10.04

But seriously, Ganesh -- me addressing you here in your shrinkly capacity -- isn't speaking from the corner of a lopsided mouth a fairly classic body language indicator that the speaker is lying through his teeth? I mean, Bush and Cheney BOTH do this, more or less constantly....

20:06 / 14.10.04

Oh, and PS, fuck Lynn Cheney. These people might have thought of "not going personal" before they got a bunch of vets to disgrace themselves by implying that Kerry shot himself to get out of Vietnam (as opposed to, I suppose, just having one's daddy get you out of it, so that you could snort coke unhindered without having to deal with the big drag of being shot at by the VC in some godforsaken jungle somewhere). I thought Kerry's comment was perfectly valid -- Cheney's daughter (the mention of her, anyway) is trotted out whenever it's convenient for Bush to try and score points with the very community whose rights he's trying to have constitutionally squashed; the Bush administration made her a political tool, not Kerry's people, and if it's a blade that cuts both ways, so be it.

unheimlich manoeuvre

00:15 / 15.10.04

John Pilger on the "choice" in Election 2004. Bush vs. Kerry: The fake debate. October 8, 2004

...the Guardian says the coming presidential election is "exceptional." "Mr. Kerry’s flaws and limitations are evident," says the paper, "but they are put in the shade by the neo-conservative agenda and catastrophic war-making of Mr. Bush. This is an election in which the whole world will breathe a sigh of relief if the incumbent is defeated."

The whole world may well breathe a sigh of relief; the Bush regime is both dangerous and universally loathed; but that is not the point. We have debated lesser evilism so often on both sides of the Atlantic that it is surely time to stop gesturing at the obvious and to examine critically a system that produces the Bushes and their Democratic shadows.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

06:23 / 15.10.04

He's absolutely right, of course; it's a lesser rendering of the same thinking which gets us someone like Dostum on the voting card in Afghanistan: "he's not as bad as the guys who sponsor terror". Does it do any good to say it now rather than on Nov 3? Doubtful. Although if the election produces another controversial result, I suppose it is dimly possible something remarkable might happen.

Jack The Bodiless

11:37 / 15.10.04

The whole world may well breathe a sigh of relief; the Bush regime is both dangerous and universally loathed; but that is not the point.

Actually, it is the point, Mr Pilger. Now, if you want ot go ahead and make a different point, go right ahead. The rest of us will concentrate on the US election, which is less of an abstract political point and more actually happening right now.

11:46 / 15.10.04

Of course, Kerry's clothes somehow looked nicer. Richer, crisper, less wrinkled. I guess he has a better tailor...

A French tailor, obviously. Like every other person that nancy anti-American commie associates with.

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