Mr. Judd;

Hopefully they'll be reading weblogs as well.

Mr. Judd:
A minor point (and not one that's debate-related): That would be Cheese "Waffies" not "Waffles." Perhaps if I compare Sen. Kerry's outrageous skin color to that of a Cheese Waffie, this post would be debate-related.

Watching the debates on a Sylvania 19" purchased just 35 minutes ago. The 15-year-old Magnavox finally died...gave great service til its dying day. The Sylvania, by the way is on sale at K-Mart for $89.00...so far, it's a good purchase.

It's official as neo-isolationist John Kerry adopts the slogan "America First"

Did the Senator just agree with Zarqawi that we're occupiers?

Bush not bringing it tonight, on defensive

Well I guess it is past his normal bedtime

We got the Tim Russert performance instead of RNC night, oh well - shouldn't matter unless he falls totaly apart

FDR responded to Pearl Harbor by attacking North Africa, no?

Senator Kerry is both saying that Saddam was a threat and that he wouldn't have removed him?

Leaning on the podium with shoulders shrugged? Geez

Shameless Plug?? for the website?

OJ
He said he would have dealt with him more effectively, it went unchallanged

Well, they both made their nod to Israel.

If we wanted their oil, it would be a sheet of glass today.

Perry:

Psychologists and jury selection folks and what not love when he leans in and pounds the podium and stuff.

Senator Kerry's insistence that Saddam wasn't the enemy seems odd.

Oops, he's back to Iraq being a diversion.

Wha??? Apologize to the UN? when? And now a history lesson? please.

No, oj, it's not. That's probably the only American impulse in Senator Seabiscuit's body : when we've beaten you, you're not our enemy anymore.

Wha??? Apologize to the UN? when? And now a history lesson? please.

I enjoyed the 'global test' response by Bush (substantively and body language). Kerry really can't help himself: "I'll act preemptively, as long as we pass a global test. But of course, I won't give other countries a veto over our self-defense." But who is grading the test, if not France and Germany?

He'd give in to Kim Jong-il and grant bilateral talks?

debates are not forums for row backs, Sen. Kerry.

Oops, Saddam's a threat again....

nope. never waivered. not once. never.

The Wife Says: Kerry's approach to nuclear proliferation is tantamount to (failed) gun control.

So Senator Kerry would give Iran nuclear material but not research the nuclear bunker busters we might need if Iran and North Korea don't give up their nukes?

I think that Senator Kerry is coming off better. I agree with Perry that President Bush seems a bit defensive. The problem is that while Bush made some major mistakes in Iraq, it's easy for Kerry to say (now) "I would have done X better". E.g., get France on board. It's only in the larger context that you realize how fatuous he is being.

Democracy has to be defended in Russia but not brought to Iraq?

I'm getting whiplash--Iraq is back to being a threat again.

Hey! They let Teresa out of her cage!

Passing the global test would seem to be the likely spin point.

Good debate, both played it safe, no major mistakes -- except: global test and stopping development of nuclear bunker busting bombs, both of which are major bloopers.

I had to run an errand and listened to the last third on radio. A la Nixon-Kennedy, I thought Kerry sounded pretty good on radio. But on television, Bush did just fine and Kerry looked a little goofy.

It would have been nice to hear the Pres. redefine the war that needs winning as the war against radical Islam WHEREVER it resides.

Based on past debates, I think the GOP has the better "go forth and attc from here" points, which is what will determine what real people are going to talk about by Monday, lqatest. The two that strike me are the "Global Test" and "I never wavered." I can see the first going right smack dab into Buswh's stump speech, the second being part of an ad showing more of Kerry's flip-flops.

I think the debae itself was more or less a wash. Kerry might get a smll, short term bounce in the next round of polling, but I think going forward Bush casn still maintain the offensive.

The Bush rhetoric was much more positive.

Nature of the race at this point -- Kerry critiquing, Bush defending.

But a couple of answers and the references to liberty and freedom sounded almost Reaganesque.

Kerry had no such hopeful moments.

That's not insignificant.

Talking heads will talk about how well Kerry did. Normal people prefer positive rhetoric to mortician-like (almost Dole-like) critiques.

Normal people vote and determine elections.

Interesting that Kerry, who's supposed to be so great on a wide range of issues stumbled on North Korea and Iran and had the weaker responses on Darfur and Russia.

Perry/AOG:

Remember, seeming Senatorial doesn't score you points outside Wonkville.

For what it's worth, the ABC instapoll says that Kerry won 45 to 37, with 17% saying they tied, but on who will you vote for, the President gained a point.

Kerry was more articulate and less annoying than I'd hoped while W was the same semi-articulate guy he's always been. He was repetitive and did not act presidential in his demeanor even when letting Kerry get away with some big lies on Tora Bora, treaties, etc. (Novak's column today was prescient. Kerry will get a big bump out of this. I'm bummed.

Bush needed to paint kerry as the defeatist who tries to gain politically off of the challenges we face in the world rather than gain through his principled vision. (which is the source of Kerry's flip flopping).

I am pretty certain Kerry won tonight on style points which is big, but as others have pointed out, Bush did get alot of policy right and some of Kerry's points were more than questionable. All in all, should play out okay in the aftermath and post debate environment. But race will tighten. Too bad.

I really am looking forward to Chenney taking Edwards apart, little Johhnny won't get away with the same baloney. And the contrast between the two! Churhill vs. a metrosexual.

Perry

Oh Yea, Bush blew it when he retorted he knew it was OBL who attached us. ??? Why didnt Bush just make a link between terrorism and Iraq?

This whole debate my girlfriend just kept repeating Bush is a moron. Drives me crazy

Perry:

His style is deadly. Folks don't want a Senate smarty pants. His bigger problem though is the psychic disonnance of his message: the war was a mistake because Saddam wasn't a threat but I voted for it because he was a threat.

David:

Bingo! The better debater tends to lose the election. Bill Clinton being the gifted exception.

Not having a television, I had the pleasure of listening to the debate on National Public Radio.

To my ears it sounded like Nixon won....

What?

Oh, I'm sorry, to me it sounded like a complete draw.

Kerry sounded good, although undoubtedly this was because he was forced into speaking in short declarative sentences. Bush had his usual brain-freezes, his usual verbal stumbles and fumbles, which, as usual didn't seem to hurt him any.

I don't think either one came out a winner on style, although, predictably, given my pro-war beliefs, I think the President won on substance.

The only really amusing moment of the evening was afterwards hearing E.J. Dionne, sounding like a bought-and-paid-for boxing judge, declare John Kerry the undisputed heavyweight champeeeeeeen of the world, scoring the fight on his card 15 to 0 for Kerry.

Considering the media's reviews of the conventions, and their total misperception of what the public reaction would be (is that would they try to do, or do they try to create the perception...?), what's the point of all this blather? They just don't matter. What coworkers tell each other tomorrow matters, and "global test" ain't going to go over real well around the coffee maker.

I am somewhat disappointed in what I perceive as Bush's missed opportunity for a (near) knockout blow.
After Kerry's statements about the war on terror being centered in Afganistan and Iraq being a deversion from the war on terror, Bush should have come back with a statement like this:

"This is the war on terror, not the war on al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is simply one front in a many fronted, world war. What Senator Kerry would apparently have done if he was president on 9/11 is to have persued al Qaeda in Afganistan until OBL was captured and declared the war over. This would have allowed some other terrorist group to acquire and use WMD on an American city at some future date. In Texas, we'd call that [Texan folksism]treating the sympton but not the disease[/Texan folkism].
That is not an acceptable plan to win the real war, which is the war on terror. To win, we need to:
1) build America's defenses through Homeland Security
2) hunt down and disrupt all terrorist groups world-wide, not simply al Qaeda. Obviously, we need to focus on groups that are more dangerous to the US first and work our way down the list.
3) Make it clear that the US will not tolerate nations that harbour or aid terrorist groups and if necessary, will go to war with nations or despots that lead undemocratic nations that continue to do so. Again, we must focus our attention first on those that are most dangerious to the US first.
4) These are short term, temporary solutions that keep the problem under control. The long term solution must be to eliminate the conditions that lead to the formation and willingness of people to join these groups. That involves aiding all nations to become free and democratic nations that don't harbour terrorists.

This is not a war that can be won in 6 months or a year. We will be at this for many years or even decades. We will have many battles and fronts on which to fight. Al Qaeda and Afganistan were just the first. Iraq and the terrorist groups there are simply next in line. By fighting in Iraq, we have already won victories in Libya, Sudan, Yamen, Pakistan, and other nations without having to fight. And once victory is complete in Iraq, and nations understand that harbouring terrorists groups earns the wraith of the US and all that goes with that, merely focusing our attention on those nations is likely to get results through diplomicy alone without having to use troops.

So while the Senator may feel he has a plan to fix the immediate problem, he is either fails to understand the full scope of the problem or lacks the long term vision to solve the problem and therefore attempts to ignore it, hoping it will go away or explode on someone else's watch."

Another remark I would have liked to have seen Bush counter-punch on is Kerry's multiple sayings of "90% of troops are US, 90% of the deaths are US, 90% of money is US".

I don't have the statistics but I know that in past conflicts that were UN sanctioned (Korea and Gulf 1 come to mind) and therefore met Kerry's definition of "multilaterial", most of the troops, most of the deaths, and most of the money came from the US. All we really get with UN sanction is the extra headache of having the UN as a middle manager and usually the UN preventing us from finishing the job.

Some actual real substance on Korea. I'm not sure which is scarier - that Kerry's Korea policy is just to be contrary, or that he actually believes it.

I wonder how many people noticed Bush's sly remark about "We discussed with the Chinese how a non-nuclear North Kor - Korean penninsula was in their interests." Not a stumble at all, but a hint that NK isn't the only potential nuclear power in Asia, clearly not what China wants.

>...afterwards hearing E.J. Dionne ... declare
>John Kerry the undisputed heavyweight
>champeeeeeeen of the world, scoring the fight
>on his card 15 to 0 for Kerry.

BUT EES PARTY LINE, COMRADE!
(Now go keel Moose and Squirrel)