Sunday, October 03, 2004
McGlaughlin Group today; more views on the debate.
Pat Buchanan today said that John Kerry won the debate "going away" and that since George Bush couldn't get a reaction from Jim Lehrer or the crowd by repeating his sound bites he got "miffed, peeved, and even petulant."
One of the themes that everyone was talking about was how Bush's people keep him in a bubble. He doesn't talk to the press, he doesn't go to rallies unless everyone has a ticket and is a supporter, and he very rarely has to speak contemporaneously to people. When he speaks in front of people he uses sound bites that fire up the crowd and he tried to do the same thing in the debate.
They all said that Kerry was well prepared, knowledgeable about the issues, and scored huge points by quoting George Bush Sr.'s book. To paraphrase the passage from the book: "We didn't try to overthrow Iraq and get Saddam Hussein out of power because there was no viable exit strategy. We would have been occupying a country that didn't want us there and had no prospects for stability." Everyone seemed to think that really flustered Bush.
Bush won points by pouncing on Kerry's "global test" comment. This is more of an abstract concept, though, and doesn't really characterize what Kerry was saying. Anyone who was actually listening knows that Kerry did not rule out preemptive action and said simply that he would use it more carefully than Bush.
A quote from Tony Blankley, the biggest shill for the Republican party on the show: "John Kerry won the debate on style. It remains to be seen who won on substance." I think that's as close as any Orthodox Republican, for lack of a better term, can come to saying that Kerry simply won.
The Vice-presidential debate is going to be very interesting. "Big Time" Cheney is not above throwing cheap shots at Kerry or Edwards, whereas Bush can't really get away with that.
Incidentally, the best two hours on television every week are The Chris Matthews Show, Meet The Press, and The McGlaughlin Group on NBC Sunday mornings. It's a standard that all those strictly news channels should try to live up to.
One of the themes that everyone was talking about was how Bush's people keep him in a bubble. He doesn't talk to the press, he doesn't go to rallies unless everyone has a ticket and is a supporter, and he very rarely has to speak contemporaneously to people. When he speaks in front of people he uses sound bites that fire up the crowd and he tried to do the same thing in the debate.
They all said that Kerry was well prepared, knowledgeable about the issues, and scored huge points by quoting George Bush Sr.'s book. To paraphrase the passage from the book: "We didn't try to overthrow Iraq and get Saddam Hussein out of power because there was no viable exit strategy. We would have been occupying a country that didn't want us there and had no prospects for stability." Everyone seemed to think that really flustered Bush.
Bush won points by pouncing on Kerry's "global test" comment. This is more of an abstract concept, though, and doesn't really characterize what Kerry was saying. Anyone who was actually listening knows that Kerry did not rule out preemptive action and said simply that he would use it more carefully than Bush.
A quote from Tony Blankley, the biggest shill for the Republican party on the show: "John Kerry won the debate on style. It remains to be seen who won on substance." I think that's as close as any Orthodox Republican, for lack of a better term, can come to saying that Kerry simply won.
The Vice-presidential debate is going to be very interesting. "Big Time" Cheney is not above throwing cheap shots at Kerry or Edwards, whereas Bush can't really get away with that.
Incidentally, the best two hours on television every week are The Chris Matthews Show, Meet The Press, and The McGlaughlin Group on NBC Sunday mornings. It's a standard that all those strictly news channels should try to live up to.
# posted by ChuckJerry : 10/03/2004 11:39:00 AM
