What, Me Worry?
So did y'all watch the debates last night? What did you think? It seemed to me that one of these men is a good public speaker and one is not. I don't know. Maybe it was just me. Bush said some mighty strange things, and for awhile it seemed his brain was stuck on some kind of loop:
Bush: ... mixed messages ... hard work ... changing positions ... mixed messages ... hard work ... changing positions ...
There were confidence-inspiring comments about the situation in Iraq:
Bush: (twitching) I know about the war. I watch it on TV.
(Kerry starts to giggle and masks it by drinking a glass of water.)
Then there was him getting defensive about the wrong part of the accusation:
Kerry: The real issue is that Saddam Hussein was not the one who attacked us. Osama bin Laden attacked us.
Bush (indignant): Of course I know Osama bin Laden was the one who attacked us! I know that!
But my favorite was the bizarre statement Bush made when he mentioned going to visit the widow of a fallen soldier:
Bush: It was difficult. I loved her as well as I could.
What?! Is that a flask in your suit coat, Mr. President? Anyway, I noticed that Bush seemed annoyed for much of the debate. He sighed and twitched and huffed his rebuttals like a pouty child. I couldn't help but think of that line from the musical "Evita" in which Argentinian leader Juan Peron bemoans the fact that he is forced to participate in elections in order to remain in office:
"The inconvenience—having to get a majority."
More to come...
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1 Dave said January 14, 2010 at 9:37 p.m.
Alas, being in France I only got to see a 30min "best-of", followed by a quick first analysis of the debate.
Thank you for sharing those few lines, they weren't in the pieces I got to see. Though I don't really know if I should laugh or cry, as it seems the scratched record is still number one in the charts.
2 Karen said January 14, 2010 at 9:37 p.m.
The thing is, in the context of the debates the broken record sounded pretty stupid. Kerry defused the "flip-flop" thing early on by explaining that, yes, he thought Saddam was a threat, and yes, he voted to authorize force if necessary, but that there was a right and a wrong way to go about disarming him, and Bush chose the wrong way. Still, "He changes his positions!" was sort of the default statement when Bush couldn't figure out what to say. He looked more desperate every time he said it.
I'm a bit biased, of course. But even my pro-Bush friends agree that the debate was a train wreck for the president. I'm curious how it looked to the rest of the world, though. How did it come off in the French media?
3 Dave said January 14, 2010 at 9:37 p.m.
Before anything else, I should say that until this debate, the analysis of the French media gave Bush a clear lead. The debate was considered a last survival opportunity for Kerry. Given that context, most of the media said that he had survived very well, even that he started to "look" electable. However, the odds given here are still massively in Bush's favor.
An analogy I quite liked was that of a boxing match, with Bush the champion and Kerry the challenger. Kerry was intelligent not to behave like a challenger and go in punching away at the champion. Instead, he let his opponent come to him, which caught Bush off guard and allowed Kerry to place a few good blows. In a sense, by behaving like a champion he reminded Bush that he wasn't out yet.
As for myself, watching the bits that got aired, I also found that Bush was just a little too focused on saying that Kerry would be a bad president because of his "mixed messages", instead of saying why he'd be a better president than Kerry. That alone I found quite amusing to watch. Kind of reminded me of the last presidential election in France!
4 Karen said January 14, 2010 at 9:37 p.m.
The analogy of the champion and the challenger is a great one. That was exactly the dynamic I picked up from watching the debate.
As for the last presidential election in France, I mostly remember hearing allegations of robbery directed at Chirac from Le Pen, and I heard that some people wore clips over their noses when they cast their ballots.
5 Dave said January 14, 2010 at 9:37 p.m.
The allegations directed at Chirac may or may not be true. However, it was fairly clear he was after the job to renew his immunity, which let him get out of a few awkward trials involving a few of his political friends.
As for the nose clipping, sadly yes. In the second round of our elections (refresher: French elections are in two rounds: the first is free for all, the two best results go on to the second round, where the president is elected), we basically had a choice between very right wing and extremely right wing, as the leading socialist candidate (among others; but he was depicted as the challenger) was knocked out in the first round. A golden opportunity for Chirac (the less extreme of the two), who based his second round campaign on "because you don't want that extremist nutcase for president", which looks a lot like what Bush is doing right now.