What I think are the most revealing moments of the debates:
The Absent-Minded, Lying Vice President Whose Staff Doesn't Dare Fact Check Him Moment:
washingtonpost.com - Vice Presidential Debate -- Vice President Cheney and Sen. John Edwards: Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you "Senator Gone."... Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session.
The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.(1) It wasn't Edwards's hometown newspaper. (2) Cheney isn't in the Senate most Tuesdays when the Senate is in session. (3) Cheney had in fact met Edwards at least three times--and sat next to him. (4) There are only 100 Senators--it's interesting that Cheney can't remember which of them he has met. (5) It's even more interesting that Cheney's staff can't keep track of which of them he has met.
The Furious George Who Doesn't Know Where the Numbers He Quotes Come From Moment:
washingtonpost.com: Second Presidential Debate -- President Bush and Sen. John Kerry: BUSH: Do you realize, 900,000 small businesses will be taxed under his plan because most small businesses are Subchapter S corps or limited partnerships, and they pay tax at the individual income tax level....
KERRY: ...[L]et me just address what the president just said.
Ladies and gentlemen, that's just not true what he said. The Wall Street Journal said 96 percent of small businesses are not affected at all by my plan.
And you know why he gets that count? The president got $84 from a timber company that owns, and he's counted as a small business. Dick Cheney's counted as a small business. That's how they do things. That's just not right.
BUSH: I own a timber company? That's news to me. Need some wood?The interesting thing here is Bush's genuine confusion at being told that he qualified as a "small business" under his own administration's definition. Nobody has told him--or he has forgotten--how the numbers he spouts every day were calculated.
The Confused Surrender Monkey Moment:
washingtonpost.com - Presidential Debate Between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry: BUSH: Actually, we've increased funding for dealing with nuclear proliferation about 35 percent since I've been the president. Secondly, we've set up what's called the -- well, first of all, I agree with my opponent that the biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network. And that's why proliferation is one of the centerpieces of a multi-prong strategy to make the country safer.
My administration started what's called the Proliferation Security Initiative. Over 60 nations involved with disrupting the trans-shipment of information and/or weapons of mass destruction materials.
And we've been effective. We busted the A.Q. Khan network. This was a proliferator out of Pakistan that was selling secrets to places like North Korea and Libya....(1) Bush doesn't remember what Kerry said--Kerry said not "weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network" but "nuclear proliferation": different things. (2) Bush is confused: A.Q. Khan was not shipping nuclear secrets to terrorist networks but to other states. (3) Bush is confused and hesitant in his speech. There are two theories as to why. One is some form of organic brain damage. The second (which I believe) is the "surrender monkey" hypothesis: a monkey that knows that it has made a mess of things acts submissive and guilty in front of other members of the pack, George W. Bush knows that he has made a huge mess of things, and he's not a good enough actor to hide the natural monkey-pack-dynamics response.
what do you think the most interesting and revealing moments of the debates have been?
Posted by DeLong at October 13, 2004 12:50 PM | TrackBackI thought Kerry drew blood when he said that Missouri would be the third largest member of the coalition had it been a country.
Posted by: jonbsp at October 13, 2004 01:22 PMI think the most revealing moment is when Bush attacked Kerry's "flip-flop" on the $87B, and Kerry responded by saying something to the effect that he made a mistake in the language, but Bush made a mistake in going to war, and asking which was worse?
What's that all about? Focus group blather? Kerry did NOT make a mistake in his language; why does he say he did? Why doesn't Kerry just state the facts - there were two versions of the bill, he voted for one version and against the other. He was right then, and subsequent events have shown that his preferred version would have been better.
Instead of fighting with the truth, which gives clarity, Kerry admits something that isn't even true, which muddies the issue and leaves everyone thinking that maybe he is a flip-flopper after all.
Posted by: joe at October 13, 2004 01:25 PMI thought Kerry drew blood when he said that Missouri would be the third largest member of the coalition had it been a country.
Posted by: jonbsp at October 13, 2004 01:25 PMBrad,
The most revealing thing about the debates is that the polls are still in the 52-48 range, some days for Kerry, some days for Bush.
If the American people were even faintly functioning, the score would be 70-30.
One of my theories is that commercial television is the way a culture decides to commit suicide. Certainly there is something wildly wrong in the US of A today.
-dlj.
My "most interesting/revealing" moment is one I have yet to find anyone to agree with: in the Veep debates, when Cheney declined to elaborate (and thus ceded a 90 second slot) on the gay marriage debate.
(A) I think Edwards was doing some dirty-politics jiu-jitsu by reminding everyone that Cheney had an openly gay daughter while "complimenting" him, (B) Edwards humanized the civil union argument impeccably by talking only about hospital visitation and funeral arrangements, (C) Cheney seemed unable to bring himself to further toe the party line in a case where he fairly evidently disagrees with it, for very personal reasons.
I thought this was a crack in the Cheney facade, and his performance for the remainder of the debate seemed disspirited compared to the early going. I like to believe he got some fleeting glimpse of the personal cost of his politics.
Most people seem to have read the moment differently - that Cheney, in a rare moment of class and restraint, took the "high road." Anyone else see a guy who, for once, didn't have the heart for the ugly fight?
Posted by: rjt at October 13, 2004 01:32 PMI liked it best when he talked from both sides of his mouth - (which was why he twitched so much, I guess.)
Take a look at the following two comments from him -
A) "The Buck Stops There Presidency"
KERRY: He rushed to war without a plan to win the peace.
Ladies and gentleman, he gave you a speech and told you he'd plan carefully, take every precaution, take our allies with us. He didn't. He broke his word.
GIBSON: Mr. President?
BUSH: I remember sitting in the White House looking at those generals, saying, "Do you have what you need in this war? Do you have what it takes?"
I remember going down to the basement of the White House the day we committed our troops as last resort, looking at Tommy Franks and the generals on the ground, asking them, "Do we have the right plan with the right troop level?"
And they looked me in the eye and said, "Yes, sir, Mr. President." Of course, I listen to our generals. That's what a president does. A president sets the strategy and relies upon good military people to execute that strategy.
Yes - he blames it all on the good generals!
Later the same evening immediately after his claim of having heard rumors on the ‘internets’ about the draft, he switches to..
B) "The Thin the Ranks Presidency"! He says:
“We don't need mass armies anymore. One of the things we've done is we've taken the -- we're beginning to transform our military.
And by that I mean we're moving troops out of Korea and replacing them with more effective weapons. We don't need as much manpower on the Korean Peninsula to keep a deterrent.”
Who told him that? The same generals I guess who he quoted as having told him we didn’t need mass armies in Iraq either!
Posted by: LibertyGuard at October 13, 2004 01:35 PMI liked it best when he talked from both sides of his mouth - (which was why he twitched so much, I guess.)
Take a look at the following two comments from him -
A) "The Buck Stops There Presidency"
KERRY: He rushed to war without a plan to win the peace.
Ladies and gentleman, he gave you a speech and told you he'd plan carefully, take every precaution, take our allies with us. He didn't. He broke his word.
GIBSON: Mr. President?
BUSH: I remember sitting in the White House looking at those generals, saying, "Do you have what you need in this war? Do you have what it takes?"
I remember going down to the basement of the White House the day we committed our troops as last resort, looking at Tommy Franks and the generals on the ground, asking them, "Do we have the right plan with the right troop level?"
And they looked me in the eye and said, "Yes, sir, Mr. President." Of course, I listen to our generals. That's what a president does. A president sets the strategy and relies upon good military people to execute that strategy.
Yes - he blames it all on the good generals!
Later the same evening immediately after his claim of having heard rumors on the ‘internets’ about the draft, he switches to..
B) "The Thin the Ranks Presidency"! He says:
“We don't need mass armies anymore. One of the things we've done is we've taken the -- we're beginning to transform our military.
And by that I mean we're moving troops out of Korea and replacing them with more effective weapons. We don't need as much manpower on the Korean Peninsula to keep a deterrent.”
Who told him that? The same generals I guess who he quoted as having told him we didn’t need mass armies in Iraq either!
Posted by: LibertyGuard at October 13, 2004 01:38 PMI'm interested in hearing _what_ he considers "funding for dealing with nuclear proliferation."
In his first budget, he halved the amount going to monitor/disarm/whatever the Russian stockpiles.
I liked when Bush said that he's afraid drugs from Canada might kill you. Is there any one statement he made which lost as many votes as that one? I can easily see 1 million or more people deciding against Bush at that moment.
Posted by: marky at October 13, 2004 02:11 PMSubchapter S.
Why I love it:
1) The wonkiest issue of the whole series of debates (barring some extraordinary surprise tonight) came not from Kerry the policy wonk, but from both Bush and Cheney.
2) But the icing on the cake is, they disagreed about it. Bush says Subchapter S is a wonderful thing for small businesses, and it would be horrible if Kerry raised taxes on Subchapter S corporations. But according to Cheney, Subchapter S is a sleazy tax-avoidance loophole.
I'd die and go to heaven tonight if Scheiffer asked Bush to explain this disagreement tonight.
How it's revealing: what they're really saying is that it's a sleazy loophole, but only when John Edwards uses it. The rest of the time, it's great.
Posted by: RT at October 13, 2004 02:33 PMI thought the most impressive moment was the "only three people ... you too charlie" bit.
Posted by: Andrew McManama at October 13, 2004 02:46 PMSubchapter S.
Why I love it:
1) The wonkiest issue of the whole series of debates (barring some extraordinary surprise tonight) came not from Kerry the policy wonk, but from both Bush and Cheney.
2) But the icing on the cake is, they disagreed about it. Bush says Subchapter S is a wonderful thing for small businesses, and it would be horrible if Kerry raised taxes on Subchapter S corporations. But according to Cheney, Subchapter S is a sleazy tax-avoidance loophole.
I'd die and go to heaven tonight if Scheiffer asked Bush to explain this disagreement tonight.
How it's revealing: what they're really saying is that it's a sleazy loophole, but only when John Edwards uses it. The rest of the time, it's great.
Posted by: RT at October 13, 2004 02:52 PMI'm with LibertyGuard (above). I literally came out of my chair when Bush laid blame for insufficient troop levels in Iraq on the generals that serve him. This is from the leader of the party pushing the perception that it's strongest on national defense. My head spins at the thought of the disparity in reaction should a Democratic candidate have said such a thing, but it goes largely unaddressed in major media, and I can't believe the Democratic party didn't make Bush's own words into a deadly campaign video that very night.
Posted by: DAJ at October 13, 2004 03:49 PMMinor 'correction'.
Apparently Cheney is in fact at the Senate most Tuesdays. But he doesn't spend his time on the Senate floor, still less presiding over the Senate. However he does have a policy meeting lunch with Senate Republicans, which strangely enough Edwards as a Dem seems to not get an invite. Lucky for Cheney he is still only charged with lying out of one side of his face (and wasn't there a Dick Tracy villian with only half a face?)
Posted by: Bruce Webb at October 13, 2004 04:42 PMAt some point last week, I realized that we've been suckered into debating Bush's 900,000 small businesses figure. Kerry says he's only hiking taxes on the top two percent. Bush says this means 900,000 small businesses have increased taxes. But who cares? Two percent is two percent. Bush wants small business owners to hear this and lump themselves in with the taxed, rather than asking themselves the relevant question---if they make more than $200,000.
Posted by: Matt at October 13, 2004 04:56 PMDAJ - And he's nothing if not consistent! (the hobgoblin has him in a death grip!)
Using the generals to defend his choice of an adequately staffed peace plan, he unabashedly continues to propose a similar 'small-army' plan in Korea and other parts of the world, admittedly less conflicted than Iraq.
A more thoughtful person would rethink the small-army game plan, seeing what the grand army of the US failed to achieve in Iraq! That's if the right half and left-half of that person's brain talked to each other!
The funniest thing about the Cheney-presiding-over-the-Senate thing was when it came out that not only has he only presided over the Senate in two of the last 127 Tuesdays, Edwards has in fact presided over the Senate twice in his absence in that time frame.
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