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10/13/2004: "The Great Debates-Part Three"

(Since the debate tonight is in my neck of the woods, I had to fly out of work a little early to battle the normal rush hour gridlock we endure everyday before they made it any worse by closing down roads for the Presidential motorcade. I lucked out and beat the worst of it. Guess I used up all my luck for today and won’t need to check my Powerball ticket later tonight. Sigh.)

The debate is underway. For those of us who pay close attention to politics it is painful to hear the same sound bites over and over again.

It strikes me as strange that a member of Congress blames the Executive Branch of the government for lack of fiscal discipline by ignoring the pay as you go system since the President only signs what the Congress puts in front of him. Senator Kerry’s only defense on out of control spending is that he’s been too busy campaigning to earn his paycheck casting any votes of late.

Bob Schiefer’s questions are interesting but most are so specifically targeted at one candidate that it is a misnomer to call the opponent’s answers a rebuttal. How does President Bush comment on some members of the Catholic Church saying that voting for someone who supports policies contrary to the church’s beliefs are as guilty as a certain candidate?

Senator Kerry is giving some specifics of his health plan and it is as fundamentally flawed as every other government bureaucratic plan. It isn’t just opened for those who need it. It will incentivize businesses to drop healthcare benefits for their employees and put the burden of that expense on the taxpayer. Your company gets to keep the money they would have spent providing the benefit of healthcare insurance for you and you get to pick up the bill instead. Great idea, John! Thanks! Got any more great plans like that one? My inquiring checkbook wants to know.

Senator Kerry keeps referring to “right here in Arizona”. Very smooth tactic. He also is the official scorekeeper as to his opponent not answering the question and then after pointing that out, goes back to a previous question, spends the majority of his time doing a re-rebuttal of the previous question and then throws in a few sentences on the current question amounting to not answering the question. Slick trick.

The President keeps coming back to education on every question. He’s right; the long-term answer to a lot of these problems is to get a good education. I wonder how many people watching this debate are smart enough to see that? Give a man a fish and he’ll have one meal. Teach a man to fish and he never goes hungry. I think that’s the real difference between these two men. One believes in empowerment and one believes in entitlement.