[Previous entry: "The Big Debate"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Bill's Back"]

09/30/2004: "The Great Debates Part One"

Having worked all day I am horribly embarrassed to be typing this without having gotten a manicure today. My ratty looking cuticles and un-filed nails may be too much of a distraction to continue but I’ll give it my best shot. I’m also feeling pretty pasty looking. Too bad I didn’t have time to slip into a tanning bed and refresh my summer glow. Guess I’ll just put on my jammies and blog this out.

I knew John Kerry had to be a smooth talker because of his ability to marry very rich women and I have heard that he is an extremely skillful debater, which I concur he is. Does that make him a master debater? Anyway, I just can’t shake the feeling that the silver tongued devil will say anything with total disregard for the truth and with a total lack of character or conviction to avoid a pre-nup or to be elected President. He is the consummate politician but I don’t believe that to be an admirable trait. Politician and pathological liar are synonymous in my dictionary.

(He just dropped the Halliburton and Vietnam words in the same answer. Hugh Hewitt’s drinking contest just took two big chugs.)

Most of the answers were straight from the stump campaign speeches we have been hearing throughout the campaign season but I suppose for those who have just tuned in they may have heard something new. Yawn.

I know I’m suppose to be impressed with Jim Lehrer’s expertise as a debate moderator but the questions seemed to play right into the stump lines. His first question to John Kerry was something along the lines of “Do you think you can do a better job than your opponent?” WHAT? What do you think the answer to this question is? No. No, I can’t do a better job but vote for me anyway. That’s not a softball question; it’s a whiffle ball question.

The biggest difference in the approach these two men chose to take with the image they wanted to portray for this debate to me was that Senator Kerry’s tone of voice was that of a badgering prosecutor and President Bush’s voice was conversational. Kerry certainly is varsity eloquence and the President is a homeboy when he speaks but I found my blood pressure rising and I was tensing up when Kerry spoke because the tone of his voice was badgering my tympanic membranes. I get the same way when I hear Hillary screech.

Senator Kerry managed to put the President on the defensive during this debate and that was a great accomplishment. The media preferring style over substance will probably declare Senator Kerry the winner of this debate. Maybe he did, if you can believe a word he said.