Blogging the Debate

Since I've planned on watching the debate tonight, I decided to get out my laptop and note my thoughts as I watch.

-I like the concept of the lights. Each candidate has a box with a green, yellow, and red light on their podium (familiar to fans of Law and Order from Jack McCoy's frequent visits to the appellate court). If they go over time, the red light blinks; if the red light blinks three times, a buzzer goes off. Brit Hume from Fox News told us that it was so loud during the pre-debate testing that it made President Bush jump. Kind of like the Gong Show.

-The president hasn't reached out to the Muslim world? What do you call bringing democracy to two Muslim countries so far, Senator?

-President Bush is not a good public speaker, especially when he has to go off the cuff like he's doing tonight. He was very eloquent during the Republican National Convention, but already tonight he's pausing awkwardly and stumbling over words. This, I think is where the "Bush is a moron" camp gets most of their ammunition.

-Kerry is attacking Bush for using Afghanis to make the attempt to get Bin Laden in Afghanistan rather than Americans (the best trained troops in the world), yet he's also criticizing him for the continued participation of the same American troops in Iraq rather than transitioning more of the antiterrorist operations there to Iraqis. You can't have your cake and eat it too, Senator.

-Way to divert a debate ostensibly about national security to debate the tax cuts, guys.

-Half an hour into the debate, and I'm about ready to throw something at the TV if Kerry tries to tie his speeches back into his Vietnam service one more time.

-We didn't go into Iraq with our allies? What do you call Britain, Poland, Japan, and the approximately 30 other countries who sent troops or aid workers?

-...and there's our first Halliburton reference from Kerry. "Enron!" and "Halliburton!"...the battle cries of a liberal who's losing an argument.

-"Let me finish"--Mr. President, take my advice--you DON'T want to remind the folks at home of Ross Perot.

-"Is the liberation of Iraq worth the cost in American lives?" That's hardly a fair question. Bush fielded it as well as anyone can--"Every life is precious." Of course it's not worth the cost of lives. But is doing nothing worth the cost of the lives we will lose by not battling terrorism, not establishing allies in the Middle East?

-We need to convince Iraq we don't have designs on it? Right, we put in one of their own as prime minister and scheduled elections for January because we're getting ready to make Iraq the 51st state.

-Oil, oil, oil. Yes, Mr. Kerry, we invaded Iraq to get its sweet, sweet oil. And we've taken so much of it that our gas prices should be dipping down into the 80-cents-a-gallon range any day now. Riiiiiiight.

-One concession I'll make to the Kerry camp: Bush saying if we hadn't invaded Saddam immediately, we'd "rue the day". I've said before that I don't believe Bush lied to or misled us about WMDs, but the intel so far has turned out to be false. Although Saddam himself may have believed he had or was building WMDs, all indications currently are that he wasn't. My gut tells me this is because his own people were embezzling from him. That takes more balls to do over there than it does over here...embezzle in the U.S. and you'll get six months at Club Fed; embezzle in Saddam's Iraq and you'll get six minutes (to live) in Club Head (as in "Off with his...")

-The thing to remember about my last point is that it's easy to say that now. Our intel at that time said he had WMDs, possibly even nuclear weapons, and it was backed by reports from MI6 and Israeli intelligence. Based on the intel at that time, action was required. And the removal of an evil dictator (and Saddam was nothing less than that) is ALWAYS a noble goal.

-"Nuke-yu-lar." George, you sound like an ignorant rube. Get a speech coach, play subliminal learning tapes while you sleep, whatever it takes. Eliminate that pronunciation from your vernacular.

-Bunker-busting nuclear weapons don't make sense? Right, a weapon designed to bring down the structures where the terrorist leaders live, hide, and plot our downfall makes no sense at all. Why don't we just go back to rocks thrown from catapults?

All in all, it was interesting to watch, but it didn't change my positions any. I still know who I'm voting for come November 2nd.