Delayed Reaction

Dick Cheney is an angry father. His words. Apparently, this is a result of John Kerry's use of his daughter Mary Cheney as an example of a homosexual whose parents love, and respect her in the final presidential debate. Personally, I thought the Kerry/Edwards strategy of using Mary Cheney as an example when questions on gay marriage came up during the debates or on the campaign trail was not a good one. I honestly wince whenever I here Kerry or Edwards say her name, and until last week, was waiting for an explosion over at the Bush/Cheney campaign as a result. But, my personal opinions aside, the current "outrage" over Kerry's statements last Wednesday night is ludicrous. Either that, or it just took Bush and Cheney this long to figure out who it was Kerry and Edwards were actually talking about whenever they said Mary Cheney. And since Dick Cheney expressed gratitude towards John Edwards during the VP debate when he said that he was sure the Cheneys love their daughter very much, I doubt the latter is true.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the comments Kerry made on Wednesday night (the ones that made Cheney an "angry father"), were pretty similar to the comments Edwards made during his debate with Dick Cheney (the kind words Cheney thanked Edwards for). It seems to me that there is a term for such waffling that has become quite popular as of late... Ah yes. All together now: FLIP FLOP. Now that I have leveled the most absurd of the Bush/Cheney attacks against Cheney himself, back to the issue at hand.

So why is Dick Cheney all of a sudden so upset? After all, the basis of Kerry's comments were that Mary Cheney is simply being herself, and that he believes the Cheneys love and respect her for who she is. One could make the argument that Dick and Lynne Cheney don't want their daughter being dragged into this dirtiest of campaigns, but from what I have heard, Mary Cheney has been a foot soldier of sorts for Bush/Cheney, and has been publicly campaigning for the ticket. But even if this is not true, shouldn't Cheney have become upset the first time Kerry or Edwards used his daughter in response to a gay rights question? One would think so. Thus, the question of 'why now?' remains unanswered. Unfortunately, I don't know why. But, perhaps -- and this is merely my own hypothesis -- this is the latest attempt by Bush and Cheney to demonize Kerry; to betray him as a man of poor character, and most importantly, someone who does not share common American family values.

Yeah, the "V" word. I could go on for pages about why attacks on a candidate's values do not sit well with me at all, but instead, I will just say that given the public image of the Kerry-Heinz family, it seems to me that Kerry would be pretty in touch with common American family values, and I would be willing to bet that Theresa Heinz-Kerry, and Kerry's two daughters Vanessa and Alexandra would only confirm this. Some might also say that what Kerry says on issues related to families is also a good indicator of personal family values, to which I say expressing respect for families who allow their children to be who they naturally are, and respect and love them for doing so seems like the sign of a man with rather admirable family values. Unfortunately, Dick Cheney does not see eye to eye with me on this one (then again, I'm not sure he sees eye to eye with me on much). He apparently saw John Kerry's comments as a sort of attack on his family. Why else would he be an "angry father?" After all, he saw it fit to attack Kerry on the basis of that statement -- a statement that was meant to be one of kindness and admiration.

I don't know about you, but to me, this is just the latest in the Bush/Cheney smear campaign against John Kerry. Now, I know smear campaigns are to be expected in the heat of a political election season, but this one has had, and continues to have, a blatant disregard for the truth, and, in a way even worse, the issues. And that makes me an angry citizen.

Debate #3

Ok, I know this post is coming a bit late, but better late than never, right?
The final debate between Bush and Kerry wasn't exactly anything that required immediate commenting on anyway. I found it to just be more of the same things we all quickly grew accustomed to over the course of the first two debates. Kerry showed a calm, steady personality, but failed to land any real punches on Bush when the opportunities arose. Bush exhibited yet another painfully odd personality throughout, although I will admit, of three faces of George W. Bush that we saw over the course of the three debates, Wednesday night's happy, smiling, and sometimes a little giddy George W. Bush was probably the most normal. For those of you wondering, in my book, the other two include angry, stuttering, smirking, almost incompetent Bush, and angry, hyper, firey Bush. I did find it a little disturbing when Bush -- and on a couple of instances Kerry as well -- smiled and laughed when he was criticized. I feel like this might have been justifiable if the man being criticized had come back with a line totally disproving the charge against him, but I don't think either of them ever did. Instead, it was the same old "when attacked, don't respond, just make an attack of your own" technique.

My initial feeling on the debate was that maybe Kerry edged it out, and it seems like many of the post-debate polls supported that claim. Some even gave Kerry a pretty substantial win. But, it doesn't seem like the debate had much of an effect on voter's opinions, as the national polls seem to be showing a dead heat, just as they were before the debate. Needless to say, the next couple of weeks should prove very interesting.

The Tables Have Turned

Before the first debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry, everyone assumed that issues of foreign policy would be Bush's strong points -- since those issues are largely constituted of military matters, a Republican strong point, and are essentially the center of George Bush's campaign for reelection -- while John Kerry would be able to stand out on domestic issues such as health care and stem cell research. But, right off the bat in the first debate, Kerry masterfully put Bush on the defensive on foreign policy issues using his own record against him -- exactly what everyone knew he would have to do to win. The result was a squinting, smirking, and ultimately frustrated and exasperated George Bush desperately trying to defend himself and his decisions. Kerry came away from that debate with a clear win, and over the next few days saw a much needed surge in polls. However, in winning that first debate, Kerry showed George Bush how to win the remaining two.

One need look no further than this past Friday's second presidential debate for proof. Now, I am not by any means saying George Bush won that debate, because he did not; it may have been a tie, but it was certainly not a Bush win. But, imagine the same debate without the entire first half, which consisted of foreign policy questions. That debate, could very possibly have been a Bush win, because throughout the domestic policy section of the debate, Bush made certain to give Kerry a taste of his own medicine, throwing his senate record right back down his throat -- albeit more often than not in a rather misleading fashion. We then saw Kerry put on the defensive, although Kerry functioned much better in that position that Bush did. Fortunately, Friday's debate did include foreign policy questions that elicited the occasional shaky -- and often high decibel, or Howard Dean-esque -- response from Bush. But, this Wednesday's debate will involve no such questions. It will in effect, be the second half of Friday's debate blown up to the size of a full on, hour and a half presidential debate. If I were Kerry, or a Kerry advisory, that fact alone would worry me.

Kerry clearly has the ability to knock Bush out of the water when it comes to domestic policy issues. Polls already show a majority of voters siding with him on issues such as health care, education and stem cell research, but his answers to questions involving domestic issues on Friday night were often drawn out, vague and confusing. If he wants to even come close to doing to Bush on Wednesday what he did to him two weeks ago in their first meeting, he will have to develop some clear cut, straight forward, simple answers. At one point during Friday's debate, Kerry called an issue "very complex." Bush then shot back that it was not complex at all. It was, on the contrary, "simple." Kerry was right. But I would be willing to bet that the majority of voters want the issues, and the candidates stances on the issues, no matter how complex they actually are, explained to them in as simple a manner as possible. This is what Kerry will have to do in this weeks final debate. If he can present his domestic policy plans simply and elegantly, he may once again put Bush in a tight spot -- because voters will then have a clearer understanding of why Kerry's plans are better, and more effective than Bush's. If he fails to do this, Bush will have a much easier time making the debate about a contorted, twisted view of Kerry's twenty year senate career, rather than his four year presidential career, and what will happen over the course of next four years. That is what this debate should be about. Kerry succeeded in making it the focus of the first debate. He will have to do it again on Wednesday.

I Guess I'm Not Alone...

I wrote yesterday about the apparent gaping hole in the logic of the Bush/Cheney team's argument for justifying the Iraq war based on the findings in the Duelfer report, and how dismayed I was that no one else seemed to be picking up on it. Well, thankfully I found this morning that Noam Scheiber had a post pointing out the exact same "logic hole" in a statement made by Dick Cheney. I really am happy to see that someone else sees this problem with the administration's newest rationale for the war, but this one is just way too obvious for people to be taking so long to call them on it. I would even expect the national media to at least point this out. After all, it's not a difference of opinion, it's a difference between what the Duelfer report says, and what George Bush and Dick Cheney say. In other words, it's a distortion of the truth. Please, don't let them get away with it this time.

So They Were Working?

President Bush's favorite part of the Charles Duelfer report seems to be the statement that Saddam Hussein wanted to rebuild his weapons programs, and most likely would have once the U.N. sanctions were lifted. Bush now says this is reason enough to have gone into Iraq to remove Hussein when we did. But it seems to me that there is an enormous hole in this logic: Hussein wanted to rebuild his weapons programs, and would have if the sanctions were lifted. In other words, the sanctions were working, and so long as they were kept in place, Iraq's weapons programs would have remained incapable of producing the weapons of mass destruction that we were so certain he already had back in March 2003. This seems like a pretty big thing to overlook, but I haven't heard anyone call him on it yet. Bush even used this argument in this evening's debate. I thought Kerry might call him on it, but he did not. Unless my memory is failing me, Kerry did not even elude to the Duelfer report. I am beginning to think that I am missing something here that makes Bush's argument more credible and logical than it seems. If there is, please let me know. For now though, I am feeling fairly comfortable saying that the Duelfer report completely discredited the Bush administrations rationale for the Iraq war.

Kerry Vs. Bush Round 2

To start, a quick guarantee: both sides genuinely think they won this one. This debate was certainly closer, and the opinions on it will definitely be more varied than last time. My opinion however, is that John Kerry may have edged this one out. This is largely stemming from some rather odd things I saw from George Bush especially towards the beginning of the debate, such as his occasionally over-aggressive attitude. He seemed to jump up before even being acknowledged right off the bat, which I think is a perfectly fine strategy to appear aggressive and energetic. But, he then seemed to be yelling at the audience, and even interrupted and yelled at Charlie Gibson because he wanted to respond to something Kerry said rather than answer the question Gibson had for him. Another of my initial reactions was that Bush seemed to have been advised for this debate at the same time as Cheney was advised for his debate on Tuesday. Especially at the beginning, there were a couple lines from Bush that were verbatim repeats of something Cheney had said. Kerry on the other hand, seemed just as calm and collected as he was last time, although there were a couple of moments when he seemed somewhat tongue tied.

In terms of policy and proposals, I think this debate really showed where Bush and Kerry stand in relation to each other. It was probably one of the most helpful events yet for undecided voters. But, I think the reaction will be pretty evenly split, and if there is any affect on the polls, it will probably be minimal. If anything, Kerry may get a slight bump based on demeanor and personal likeability, but I wouldn't count on anything too significant. It should be interesting to see how the instant-polls gauge the event tomorrow morning.

Upon Further Review...

Last night's debate was officially a toss up. No one has been especially defensive of what their candidate said last night, pretty much proving that not many party loyalists subconsciously think they're candidate lost. Republicans are stating with a good deal of confidence that Cheney won, and Democrats are saying the same about Edwards. The news polls immediately following the debate don't make matters much clearer. An ABC News poll found viewers declaring Cheney the winner 43% to 35%. It also found that the viewership for the debate was more Republican than Democratic 38% to 31%, possibly explaining the lean towards declaring Cheney the winner. However, a CBS News poll of uncommitted voters who watched the debate declared Edwards the winner 41% to 28%. The fact that this poll was exclusively conducted amongst uncommitted voters could be a ray of hope for the Kerry/Edwards campaign.

Other thoughts that have come to mind in the past 24 hours: I think both Cheney and Edwards succeeded in severely irritating Gwen Ifill with their "answers," or non-answers, especially when one tried to point out that the other had not really answered her question -- something that happened at least once on both side. A slightly more important and substantial realization; both Cheney's and Edwards' debate strategy seemed to be to attack their opponent relentlessly on his record. Both succeeded in doing this, but neither really had much success in defending himself. This is largely because neither man seemed very concerned with doing so. As soon as one attacked the other's record, the other responded with an attack on the other's record. What resulted, was essentially a round of "sophisticated" name calling and bickering, and this, I believe, is what prompted me to label the debate a dud. I have thought about that label a lot today, especially after reading articles, columns, or other blog posts strongly leaning to one side or the other, and largely because of the above point, I am sticking by that statement. I was hoping to come away from last night's debate -- and all debates for that matter -- with a sense that something had been made clearer, or better yet, having heard something new. I don't feel either of those happened last night. Instead, as I said last night, I heard the same claims we have all heard repeatedly over the course of this campaign, and what were more or less stump speeches chopped up to appear as answers to questions and spread out over the course of an hour and forty minutes. (I'm sure this didn't help matters any for Gwen Ifill either). This is not an impression I have heard from anyone else yet, so if anyone out their had a similar reaction, please comment.

So what affect will last night's debate have on voters? As I said last night, probably not much of one. Democrats have already offered a warm embrace to Edwards, and Republicans have done the same for Cheney. As I said before, neither man offered any new insights into what their team could do for the country, and for this reason, the affect of the debate on undecides will probably be minimal. But, for those turned off by negative campaigning and negativity in general, Edwards may have won some points with his warm smile and demeanor, and especially with his comments about the Cheney's and their love for their daughter when talking about the issue of gay marriage. In the same respect, Cheney may have actually lost some points with his blatant disrespect for many of Edwards' answers. ("Where to begin..."). At times, he seemed to almost be laughing at Edwards. But, I think Cheney may have made up for it with his hard hitting attacks, which I found to be considerably more memorable than those Edwards leveled against Cheney. In the end though, all these points seem to have balanced themselves out, and it seems this debate is already being pushed aside in anticipation of this Friday's second debate between Kerry and Bush. Hopefully it will prove more informative.

VP Debate Thoughts

I have to honest here. I was rather disappointed with this debate. Both Cheney and Edwards unleashed some pretty sharp attacks right out of the gate during the foreign affairs section of the debate. In the end, I think they more or less balanced each other out, but occasionally I found Cheney's attacks slightly stronger than Edwards'. All in all though, both men seemed to have their pre-determined themes and pretty much stuck to those -- even when Gwen Ifill's question seemed to be attempts to steer them in other directions. This is the reason I think the debate largely turned out to be a dud.

One of the more interesting points of the debate was Gwen Ifill's attempt to illicit some opinions on the subject of gay marriage. I'm not sure I've ever seen Cheney so uncomfortable with a question. Unfortunately, I think Ifill's questions on this topic were just a waste of time, and she should have realized this given Cheney's recent statements that more or less put him in line with John Edwards. The domestic policy questions didn't help matters much as both Cheney and Edwards consistently used half of their answers to respond to previous statements by the other or to simply talk about an unrelated topic. One thing that really annoyed me was Cheney's repeated assertion, "where to begin," at the beginning of his responses to Edwards statements. However, Edwards occasional decision to talk about things completely unrelated to the questions asked didn't sit much better with me.

As I said, the debate largely turned out to be a dud, and I think it will probably go down as a tie. But, if either side gains as a result of this evening's debates, I think it will most likely be Bush/Cheney, as Cheney's attacks seemed occasionally to stick more. In the end, it was certainly not a great debate, and will probably not have a very drastic effect on the electorate.

The UN Attack

Suggestion: let's keep the attacks on the candidates limited to things they've done recently. Dick Cheney alluded to it during the debate this evening, but Sen. Lindsay Graham in his post-debate commentary on NBC blatantly attacked John Kerry based on his claim many years ago, in his post Vietnam period, that he only wanted to see U.S. troops used with the approval of the UN. That is clearly no longer his position, and that has been made clear. Those who continue to use this attack are harming the election process by hindering the voter's ability to make their decision based on the truth, and relevant facts. So STOP IT!!

What?!

In a fit of boredom today I decided to do a little channel surfing. Eventually, I came across the FOX News Channel. Now, usually I would just keep going so as not to subject myself to their version of "Fair and Balanced" reporting, but today for some reason I decided to stop and check it out. I'm not sure what the exact topic being discussed was -- because after I heard the line I am about to share with you I promptly changed the channel -- but it had something to do with the economy. Granted, I don't know who it was who said this, or what the context, but honestly, I can't imagine any of that information lessening the sheer ridiculousness of this statement by much. By now you're probably growing rather impatient with me, and your probably wishing I would just tell you what was said, but seriously, I needed to prepare you for this one. OK, now brace your selves. Ready? OK, here it is:

Every time Kerry's numbers go up, the stock market goes down.

I really don't have much to say about that, aside from that it's absolutely absurd to think that good poll numbers for Kerry put such panic and fear in the minds of investors that it causes the market to stumble. The only shred of hope I have for this statement is that its speaker possibly mispoke, and meant to say that whenever the market numbers are down, voters are reminded of Bush's economic policies and consequently flock to Kerry's side. Unfortunately, I doubt he meant this.

In closing, let me say that I am unsure of the exact wording of the statement, and what I have above is probably not 100% correct, but I do believe it is fairly close. Also, as I said before, I am unaware of who it was who said this, and the context surrounding it, so if anyone saw it and knows any of that information, please comment on it. I would love to know.

Kerry 1, Bush 0

I unfortunately missed about the first half-hour of the debate (I know, bad blogger!) but from the moment I turned it on, I could tell Kerry was winning, and the gap between him and Bush only widened from there. Kevin Drum has a post on the best Bush sound clip from last night. The list includes "He forgot Poland," "It's like, a huge tax gap," and "Of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that." Those are all good, but in my opinion, the "sound clip" that best defines Bush's performance last night wouldn't make a very good sound clip at all: the moment after George Bush was asked to respond to one of Kerry's statements when he stood there, absolutely silent, with his mouth open for a couple seconds. In a debate loaded with questions of such great magnitude as last night's, the fact that Bush did this at all should have sent Karl Rove in a fit of pure rage. But after the debate, when Rove entered "Spin Alley," he claimed that "It was one of the president's better debate performances and one of Kerry's worst." As Ryan Lizza points out in his piece for The New Republic, such blatant lies as this in desperate attempts to spin the public perception of the debate in Bush's favor are clear indicators that Kerry was the clear winner of the debate. The post debate polls only made it clearer. ABC: 45%-36% say Kerry won. CNN/USA Today/Gallup: 53%-37% in Kerry's favor. CBS (poll of uncommitted voters): 43%-28% say Kerry won. I think even Karl Rove is going to have a hard time spinning this one around -- although when you're dealing him, you never know. What I'm more curious about now is how George Bush will fare in next week's debate. Ryan Lizza suggests that he may have the same problem Al Gore did in 2000. Bush has already been strongly criticized for his gestures and facial expressions, and if he and his advisors let it get to them, Bush could be coached to the point that he will simply appear uncomfortable at the podium. The other possibility, I think, is that Bush will come out swinging relentlessly, in an attempt to catch Kerry off guard. However, from what we saw from Kerry last night, I think the possibility of him being caught off guard is unlikely. Kerry showed last night that he has a clear message, and he is fully capable of articulating it. He also showed that he is a master of using the debate format to his advantage -- something that seemed to give Bush problems. If last night's debate was any indication of what we will see in the remaining two presidential debates, it could spell disaster for George Bush, and prove once and for all that Kerry truly is a world class "come from behind" politician.

Note to the National Media

REPORTING SPIN IS NOT YOUR JOB!!!

There. I thought that was obvious, but apparently I was wrong since NBC dedicated an entire section to interviews from the "spin room" after the debate last night. It's just a wild guess, but maybe if they didn't do that, we might actually end up electing a president based on which candidate would make the best president, not which candidates campaign has the best spin machine. From now on, if you really have to talk after the debate, stick to the non-partisan expert analysts. I cannot describe how disgusted I was when the "spin room" portion of the post debate analysis received a significantly larger chunk of time than the "Truth Squad" section in which what the candidates actually said is analyzed for truthfulness. I sincerely hope the media comes to its senses by the time next weeks debates roll around. Between mass e-mails, phone calls and FOX News, we get plenty of spin as it is. So how about the media just does its job from now on. My recommendation: go the C-SPAN route. No reporters, analysts or anything. Just what matters: the debate between the two presidential candidates.