James Fallows tries to make sense of the debate:
The Atlantic Online | October 2004 Unbound | Bush vs. Kerry: Round One | James Fallows: That was George Bush's worst performance in a debate, by far, ever. My mantra had been that neither Bush nor Kerry had ever lost a debate. That is no longer true.
What made it a bad performance for Bush was not what he said but how he looked and the way he comported himself. Inexplicably, he spent the debate hunched down behind his lectern, looking small. In no previous debate had he permitted himself the grimaces that he wore each time he was criticized or challenged. Although the "rules" told him those expressions would not be televised, he had to have known (and have learned from the Gore debates four years ago) that he would be on stage and potentially on camera the entire time. So either he could not help himself or he had not prepared. When Bush has been "skillfully on message," as he has been in every one of his previous debates over the last ten years, he has been able to dress up his two or three main points with a variety of supporting details. When he has been "clumsily on message," as in most press conferences this year, he just says the same two or three things over and over again and seems unable to respond to or even hear questions. His performance in this debate was in the latter category.
This was near the top of Kerry's past performances, even though he missed a few opportunities and looked unusually (for him) nervous at the start. What made it a good performance for him was less what he said, though that mattered, than the way he looked and carried himself. With no sound on, if you had to choose "The President" from watching the two men on the screen, it would be the big one with the square shoulders and the relaxed air you'd pick. As the evening wore on Kerry relaxed and Bush tired. Previously Kerry had been strongest when taking a prosecutor's role—calm in bearing, but continually moving in on the adversary. He maintained that tone in much of the debate. As for what he said, Kerry came closer than he has previously in the campaign to a concise indictment of the Bush stewardship of foreign affairs. His line that Bush's policy boiled down to four words—"more of the same"—is one he could keep using.
This reminded me of the first Carter-Reagan debate, not because there were any "there you go again" lines—though the gotcha about not being attacked by Saddam Hussein was useful—but because it put the challenger on equal footing with the incumbent. It does not mean that Kerry will win, but it gives him a much better chance to make his case and be considered.
My favorite line from Bush: "He forgot Poland!"
Friday, October 1, 2:00 p.m update: What does it mean to say that Kerry "missed some opportunities?" Presidential debates aren't really about catching every missed point or logical lapse. But there were a few more places where Kerry could have struck—as he did with "Saddam Hussein didn't attack us."
"You say we're training 100,000 Iraqi security forces and they'll take care of the situation? What happened to the 100,000 that Secretary Rumsfeld said were trained and ready last March?"
"You say that training those 100,000 Iraqis is our highest priority. Then why is the American unit charged with this duty, under General Petraeus, at 30 percent of its authorized strength? Is that incompetence? Or is it a wrong choice?"
"You say we can't seek other nations' permission in dealing with Iraq. Yet you've told us over and over that we have to worry about China's permission before dealing with the ongoing nuclear problem in North Korea. Which is it, Mr. President? How can you lead with this mixed message."
"You say that all Senators had the same information you did before going into Iraq. In all previous administrations, the President himself was uniquely entrusted with the most sensitive intelligence reports. Are you saying that you've reversed the policy of all your predecessors and shared our nation's secrets with 100 members of the Senate—some of whom are bound to leak?"
Or, if John Kerry had given up all realistic hopes of winning the Presidency: "You say that Iraq used to be a place where Iraqis had their hands cut off. Now it's a place where Americans have their heads cut off. Is this an improvement, Mr. President?"
Also take a look at Fallows's "When George Meets John". It makes me want to watch the Bush-Richards debate from 1994...
Posted by DeLong at October 3, 2004 08:38 AM | TrackBackIt has to be the best kind of coincidence. I went over to CSPAN to see if I could watch the debate with the sound off as Fallows recommends. And look what I found. It looks like Fallows did a 2 hour program for CSPAN on the Kerry/Bush debating styles, and I just started watching it, and it looks like he brought his video tapes with him, including the Richards/Bush tapes.
Posted by: w at October 3, 2004 09:00 AM
Don't Ask, Don't Tell
One of our neighbors just got back from GWII,
hopping around on one leg, kind of a shock,
but certainly not like the end of the Civil
War, hundreds of thousands of maimed veterans
lining the streets, living on the dole in
Old Soldier's homes built for the purpose.
Right now we only have 8,000 or so on our side,
probably ten times that among helpless Iraqis,
with no social network, two of every three men
unemployed, one of every six fighting in the
Resistance, more every day, ala Algeria or Nam.
The shame of it, for US, is unspeakable.
So let's speak in allegories, like the Middle
Ages, when it was forbidden to speak directly,
at punishment of burning, hanging, quartering.
This guy I know worked in the Peace Corps in
Guatemala during the time Reagan and Bush Sr's
CIA was mucking up Central America, funding
the suppression of freedom movements, creating
brutal dictatorships and police militias to
kill off the Resistance, disappearing people
to strike terror in the general populace.
He set up a agricultural co-op for the locals,
a place where they could use their surplus corn
to grow out chickens, and then sell them in the
cities for much-needed cash. An honorable deed.
Everyone needs cash to pay the fee-men and the
lease-men who pull our puppet strings.
He told me about Nicaragua after a hurricane,
so much aid flowing in, in the form of grains,
far past when it was no longer needed, that it
broke the back of the local agragrian economy,
no demand for local-grown grains, no co-op in
place, so no cash for rebuilding, the UN's kind
gesture resulting in the destruction of the
social network, and mass migration of displaced
campesanos toward the North.
He went back to Guatemala to see his village.
But the co-op was gone, the chicken factory
a rusted shell, the people displaced from their
land. It seems under the FTAA/NAFTA trade rules,
Tyson Meats was sending chicken thighs, which
North Americans will avoid in favor of white
breasts, exporting millions of dark thighs by
the 40,000# van down through Central America,
destroying agragrian markets for chicken and
corn as they went, sending campasenos North.
No wonder Bush refuses to deal with the problem,
as many as 3,000,000 displaced and destitute a
year, by some estimates, so we can have our
white meat popcorn chicken, so Tyson can have
it's juicy profits for vampiroyal investors.
In a world this fragile, gutted and hollowed,
how can we allow a plan of US empire, of shock
and awe, bombing campaigns and tanks in Gaza?
Because white Americans are perfectly happy
throwing away dark meat, while dark Americans
can only bite their tongues and hang on, as
their own poor kids take up the burden of war.
So you want to vote for Kerry? Ask yourself,
what white visages lurk in his closet!? The Hunts,
like the Tysons, Free Traders, 3rd world exploiters.
So the people want an urbane president, instead of
a recovering alkie, a coke head and Jesus freak?
Give them Kerry. Kerry supports Free Trade, he
supports Zionism. Kerry supports continued US
economic war against the world's dark peoples.
And with Kerry, don't forget now(!), you get a
millionaire country lawyer, a Madeleine Albright,
a Robert Reich, a Bruce Babbitt, a Federico Pena,
and a Robert Rubin. Vote Kerry, you get Janet Reno
and Les Aspin. Vote Kerry, and you get the same
Defense strategy we have today: Circle the wagons.
Circle the wagons, and export those dark thighs!
In 1993, the US military budget was $200B a year.
Today, 10 year's later, it's more than twice that.
Did the economy double since then? Did your takehome
income double since then? Did your discretionary
spending after taxes, goods and services *double*?
Ask yourself that when you pull the voting lever.
Am I twice as better off today than I was under
Clinton?
Then, am I voting to change the system, or am I
merely being asked to perpetuate it?
Bush = Red Army, Kerry = Blue Army.
Same Vampirocracy.
Don't ask, don't tell, comrade!
My favorite line in the debate was when Bush asked for the additional 30 seconds and then couldn't think of what to say.
Posted by: Charles at October 3, 2004 09:33 AMTante Ratatoskr,
I agree that if Kerry wins there will still be many, many problems for the US to face.
However, it may be that the US Constitution will still be intact.
Posted by: sm at October 3, 2004 10:17 AMShock and Awe indeed. What went wrong with Bush is that there was no crowd of adoring Republicans around him, enthusiastically applauding every sound bite. Who needs substance when you have all those cheers?
It was the same way at the U.N. with a bunch of stony-faced diplomats -- somewhat better informed of the facts on the ground than your average U.S. voter.
I thought that W would get a clue from that experience. It is the only time I can think of that he hasn't had an audience that wasn't screened for loyalty. Obviously, he has learned no more about than he has learned about anything but how to play dirty politics.
The only way I could be more disgusted with Bush is if I had ever been a Bush supporter. Some leader.
Posted by: Alan at October 3, 2004 11:01 AMTante Ratatoskr:
I hear you loud and clear! However with Kerry we have a chance of communicating ideas and letting him know what the consequences are to the rest of the world of each US decision. With Bush when he says he's going to protect American people and interests over foreign interests, what he means is he's going to protect Halliburton and Harken Energy and the Tysons and Ken Lays of the world. Kerry has a conscience and will not be beholden to purse strings or puppet strings - or that is what I pray.
Equating the two would mean one would have to choose to bypass all elections totally - an incredibly jaded pessimistic view of our society, which I'm yet not prepared to do - OR go the 3rd party/Nader/ Libertarian route, which opts to bypass the 2004 elections in favor of having a chance to effect long-term change to the system. But like Keynes noted (and Reagan lived it), in the long run we are all dead: so I would rather not give up this short term chance at correcting course of this unwieldy ship of state, in favor of a long term long odds at refashioning the whole political and economic system. On Nov 4, if Kerry loses or by 2008 if we still have more of the same under K/E I might throw in the towel.
Well, the Democrats all seem to wish that Kerry had said more zingers, but these are the same folks who thought Kerry was going to lose the debate. Perhaps Kerry did better, for now, than these people realize? You’ve got to listen to this like it’s currently on the radio while you’re taking incoming mortar rounds on your desert bunker: one or two ripostes per two-minute answer, and then, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT. Don’t need more bitching right now, thank you!
Not much empathy on either side?
So what happens next? The Republicans blew it by attacking Kerry's character so early in the campaign; all that's left there, is strident silliness.
Or, of course, an October Surprise.
Kerry can surely win the Domestic Debate on points of knowledge, but one danger is overconfidence, and, given the utter brickheadedness of the opposition, condescension. And then, the fiscal issue requires a complex explanation. BUT the populace has already swallowed the suppy-side investment semi-canard--look how many educated journalists can't sort it out! It's been gussied-up in college-speak and boiled down to an ooze covering barstools from Santa Monica to Philly.
Given the style, complexity, and rhetoric necessary to the domestic issues, Bush may actually find strong ground in his simpletonian nostrums.
Kerry needs to combine a little voter-education with his criticism and proposals. He might say something like: we needed tax cuts, but we got the wrong kinds. (Another shortsightedness we cannot afford!) The rich banked the dough against their losses gambling up the old stockmarket. Meanwhile business investment for productivity doesn’t hire many people.
Once again, it was the cart before the horse! Investment for future productivity always takes care of itself, once we get people working, educated, healthy. We haven’t accelerated anything, except the concentration of wealth assets, upward. We’re STILL paying off the Reagan and Elderbush deficits, and your kids are going to be paying-off W’s! Guaranteed!
Posted by: Lee A. at October 3, 2004 11:57 AMAll of Fallows's suggestions for missed opportunities involve Kerry asking Bush questions. That was not allowed under the agree-upon rules. Kerry could and should have made some of those points, but not in the forceful manner that Fallows proposes. No doubt it was for fear of that kind of thing that the Bush campaign insisted on the no-direct-questions proviso.
Posted by: VinnyD at October 3, 2004 11:59 AMIf someone hasn't yet said, blogging well is the best revenge, they should have.
http://flyunderthebridge.blogspot.com/2004/10/chattering-class-prejudice-alert.html
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan at October 3, 2004 12:05 PMVarious histories relate how back in the 1920s there was an unwritten rule that sportswriters did not ever mention Babe Ruth's excessive alcohol use or "skirt chasing" (I suspect there would be a different phrase for the latter behaviour today). In the long run that was not a favor to Ruth or society, I think.
Then in the late 30s and 40s newspapers and photographers conspired to never depict FDR's inability to walk and general frailness. Here I think the question of whether it was right or wrong to conceal the truth is at least debatable.
Which brings us to George W. Bush. From every piece of public evidence I can see there is clearly something wrong with him - physically or psychologically. Yet NO ONE from any major media outlet will investigate or write about this. Fallows has come the closest of any, but he still hints and "speculates" in a limited-circulation publication.
Will ANYONE speak up? There must be many who know or suspect what is going on.
Cranky
Posted by: Cranky Observer at October 3, 2004 12:28 PMI know this sounds terrible and cruel (especially in the cold light of a PC), but is it possible that there is some honest-to-god degeneration occurring in GWB? He seemed like a totally different person to me from the one who debated Gore in 2000. Now, I personally can't stand the guy, but I could understand before why other people did (abstractly). But he seemed disoriented and a bit out of it. Lots of partisans have said it's because he never faces challenges from people (cocooning), but I wonder. If he does (like Reagan, whose Alzheimer's must have started occuring at least in 1986), what might happen? I wish we could have some honest discussion of things like this. I frankly would have a lot more sympathy for the guy if he turned out to have some serious problem that they were trying to hide.
Posted by: Paul Orwin at October 3, 2004 02:20 PMPudentilla explains why John Kerry is smiling.
If our national public education system hadn't failed us and dumbed down generations... if history were re-written by the losers... if there weren't power/wealthy precedents over the populace... if the truth were accepted about the Fed and IRS...if inner-breeding of the royals didn't happen... if the vatican hadn't continued the plans of the Roman empire... if the Christ returned and explained himself in a simpler fashion... if lies dissappeared, with NATO and our security council (we never will hear from)...if if if if if...the truth is plain and simple....just hard to take....there are those who rule and those who serve... we lost... now what ?
Posted by: Hawk at October 3, 2004 03:47 PMTry this... Bush = One World Order... a world generated by the corporations... or Kerry = socialism. Won't someone clear up the definitions of Democracy vs Republic ? Both don't work... the World is in for a wakeup call sooner than I'd hoped for.
Posted by: Hawk at October 3, 2004 03:51 PMI thought Kerry missed an opportunity opened up by Bush's dismissal of the world court of war crimes. He could have brought up Abu Ghraib, as a reason why we need it. Is that topic off limites now?
Posted by: Knut Wicksell at October 3, 2004 06:36 PMFor those questioning whether GWB has a medical condition: In last month's Atlantic some doctor wrote a letter to the editor in response to Fallows' article "When George Meets John". He noted Fallows' description of how much more articulate W was when he was debating years ago, and concluded this change could only be explained by some sort of dementia. The letter is in the print edition, not sure if it is online. This is only a letter to the editor, but it is a pretty blunt speculation in a fairly major publication. But I haven't heard of any further commentary.
Posted by: Christo at October 3, 2004 07:30 PMKnut --I'd bet Abu Graib was off-limits. Likewise military records were off-limits on the character question.
Posted by: calmo at October 3, 2004 08:37 PMTo the notions that Bush is degenerating; or has some kind of "brain disease", here are some facts to do the math on a pattern.
1.) he needed The VP Cheney to be a "two-person testimony" when before the 9-11 commission. (Like they are married and going to the accountants on 4/14)
2.) Seemingly on vacation at Camp David or Crawford Texas almost half of his tenure. (If any of us taxpayers did that, we would be fired, or forced to resign.)
3.) Refused to take a physical before elections. (Remember how everyone was scared about Cheney's health in year 2000 (Now what me worry)
4.) Has trouble with facts
5.) Is protected by his handlers like no other president (special rules for debate; no split camera shots?)...rarely a press conference, and when so, only scripted questions that are handed beforehand) Handlers keep him in Crawford, or constatly spinning around so as to keep his mind busy)
*shall I go on...