Let the spin begin - heraldblog

Let the spin begin

First of all, I'm no fan of Presidential debates. They're not really debates, and to even call them superficial and meaningless to to give them way too much dignity. But in our superficial electoral process, they are important. So when George Bush walked quickly onto the debate stage Thursday night, and met John Kerry more than halfway, on Kerry's half of the stage, thereby asserting dominance in some proto-Jungian sense, that becomes important. Or the fact that Bush is several inches shorter than Kerry, and cast a gargoyle-like presence as he peered over the top of his lectern, becomes important. Call me a purist, or a utopian, or a perfectionist, but shouldn't "debates" be about issues?

Now that I got that out of the way, several things struck me about last night's Thrilla in Vanilla. Yes, Kerry did seem Presidential, and I hope that means he puts to rest the manufactured charge that he can't make up his mind about anything. I also appreciated the way he didn't once go over his alloted time for speaking, although I did wince when, at one point, Kerry seemed to be winding up in one response, glanced down at the lights on the podium, then said "I see I have some time left, so I want to say one more thing." That's a little like your proctologist saying "I've completed my examination of your sigmoid colon, but I have one more large, shiny object that I haven't inserted yet, so here it goes." Memo to Kerry: if you've already made your point, don't make another one.

I wanted to thrown a large, shiny object at the television screen when Bush attacked Kerry for criticizing his prosecution of this costly and badly managed war. Democracies don't win wars despite the fact they afford their citizens free speech. We win because of the liberties guaranteed to us. To say it is damaging to the war effort to call Allawi a US puppet is ludicrous. It is doubly ludicrous when you realized that the Bush campaign actually wrote the speech that Allawi gave to a joint session of the house and senate earlier this week. I wish Kerry had pointed that out, but he was probably too busy preparing for the beauty contest to read this Washington Post article from yesterday.

So it looks like Kerry "won" the pseudo debate, which could give him a much need lift in the "polls", which really don't track anything. Kerry supporters, of which I am one, need to spread the gospel of Saint John so the leather-wings members of the Rove death-machine don't have us all convinced that Bush actually "won". So write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Click on a meaningless on-line media poll (CNN.com, for instance). Stop reading this stupid blog and go to JohnKerry.com, and volunteer to do something, anything.

Why does the 82nd Airborne hate freedom?

"Last night about 40 minutes into the debate my son, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, called from his barracks room. He let me know Kerry had just earned 5 votes from him and 4 other troops watching the debate in his room. He got back from Iraq in April. He was at a FOB just south of Fallujah when he was there."
An email sent to Andrew Sullivan

Poles pulling out of Iraq

President Bush dazzled a national audience last night with his knowledge of Poland, a staunch Operation Iraqi Freedom ally, even correctly naming the Polish President, Aleksander Kwasniewski. It was a stern rebuke to upstart Kerry, who failed to credit brave Poland for its contribution to bringing peace and freedom to the Middle East. Yes, it is a wonderful coalition that our President has assembled.

And now that the mission has been accomplished, Poland is planning to bring its troops home.

Long live the coalition of the willing!

(cue Polish National Anthem)

1.10.04 15:48

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