NationStates Jolt Archive

Just wanna see who watched the two ugly old white guys "debate" each other.

This may surprise some people, considering how partisan I am and how closely I follow all things political in the US, but I didn't watch it. I got home late from work, flipped it on for a minute for what seemed to be Bush saying "You are so a flip-flopper" and decided I'd seen enough. It's not like Bush had a chance on hell of convincing me to support me or that Kerry could have lost my vote, after all.

Was there anything interesting? Did Bush soil himself, hug the podium and call for his mommy at any point in the debate?

Hello all,

I tuned in for a sec, but I have such a hard time picking who I dislike more so I only watched it for a minute or two.
On the one hand Bush can't tell the truth, but Kerry can't keep one opinion long enough to lie about it.
Third party is the only way this year, vote Peroutka.
~Jon

This may surprise some people, considering how partisan I am and how closely I follow all things political in the US, but I didn't watch it. I got home late from work, flipped it on for a minute for what seemed to be Bush saying "You are so a flip-flopper" and decided I'd seen enough. It's not like Bush had a chance on hell of convincing me to support me or that Kerry could have lost my vote, after all.

Was there anything interesting? Did Bush soil himself, hug the podium and call for his mommy at any point in the debate?

President Bush started off very strong, but didn't finish as strongly. His convictions never wavered or strayed, but he was a little repetitive.

Kerry started off a little stiff, but came on strongly in the second half. He was eloquent, and obviously well learned and knowledgeable of the facts. He tried hard to be more likeable, which I think was partly successful.

Unfortunately for both, this wasn't a debate. It was "the 90 minute stump speech" show. In most questions, the candidates distorted each question to fit in their sound bites, and the victim of that was the facts. I was disappointed in the debate itself. I like some things about each candidate (but don't presume to insult or attack them as people, as most do - Incertonia). They both have a deep love for this country, and their own views on how it should be run. Vote policy and your conscience. It's not that hard.

I watched about 20 minutes or so.

i heard bush mentioned september 11th in the first three minutes and didn't actually answer the questions. apparantly he was on a raised platform as well.


i lack cable, if someone has some transcripts, then i'll read them.

This may surprise some people, considering how partisan I am and how closely I follow all things political in the US, but I didn't watch it. I got home late from work, flipped it on for a minute for what seemed to be Bush saying "You are so a flip-flopper" and decided I'd seen enough. It's not like Bush had a chance on hell of convincing me to support me or that Kerry could have lost my vote, after all.

Was there anything interesting? Did Bush soil himself, hug the podium and call for his mommy at any point in the debate?
You can watch the kibitzing here (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=361740).
Woot! It got archived!

I haven't watched it, but I recorded it. I don't know that I'll ever get around to watching it though; I doubt either one of them said anything that would have surprised me.

i heard bush mentioned september 11th in the first three minutes and didn't actually answer the questions. apparantly he was on a raised platform as well.


i lack cable, if someone has some transcripts, then i'll read them.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134152,00.html

For all you Fox haters...this is merely a transcript of the debate, without commentary. And I'm pretty sure they didn't falsify the transcript.

Happy reading.

Watched it. Enjoyed it. I will not be watching the SPIN DOCTORS.

I watched the entire thing, from start to finish, and will thereby give a more comprehensive assessment then put forward thus far.


Bush: Despite an initial strong surge, Bush gradually began to lose his grip on the debate, as his preparations became seemingly inadequate. Constant use of a handful of, what would eventually become obviously taught, phrases caused the President to slowly become less of the driver, and more of a repetitive machine. The President's strong start was also cut off by a lack of clarity and actual detail in his statements. Although this was less dramatic towards the end of the debate, the President throughout the middle 45 minutes gave little actual detail to go along with what was largely a statement of "Prepare for exactly what we are already doing." Bush also did not help himself through his actions when he was not speaking, and by constant long pauses, and corrections to his speech, which impeded his message. Bush's rather...unhappy and disconcerted mannerisms when he was not speaking lended a rather odd light to the suddenly jovial face he displayed whenever the camera first become obviously fixated upon him.

Kerry: Kerry came out the gate at a steady pace, and stayed with it, taking advantage of what Bush gave him, and keeping his views constant enough that the President would only have one credible opportunity to accuse him of "flip-flopping". Kerry started off with slightly grandoise statements, that led him to be disadvantaged, however through building up detail and obvious well thought out plans throughout the debate, Kerry would finish with a much more discernable set of plans than Bush. Furthermore Kerry managed to retain an air of composure throughout the debate, and spoke with great elegance, making only a handful of mistakes. However Kerry did on occasion repeat mantras, much as Bush did, however this occured mainly early on in the debate, and where usually the most damning pieces of the argument that applied.

Edge: Kerry. If one turned off the debate after the first half hour, the victor would be Bush by a small margin. However, as the debate progressed Kerry steadily took control and, in my opinion, by the end had quite effectively won most of the actual debate, combined with better speaking. Bush did little to help himself as time went on, with unsteady answers, vagueness, and repetition.

I watched the entire thing, too, and I'm surprised you could come up with so much to say. I've heard everything already in stump speeches. All they did here, both of them, was try to find a way to slip those speech excerpts in.

Nothing New.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134152,00.html

For all you Fox haters...this is merely a transcript of the debate, without commentary. And I'm pretty sure they didn't falsify the transcript.

Happy reading.I'm reading the transcript now on the Daily Kos, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was lifted from the same place Fox got theirs. The more I read, the more it sounds like Bush's whole argument was "but Kerry's a flip-flopper" and I think that's starting to wear a little thin--at least I hope it is. I'm not exactly unbiased in this after all.

This may surprise some people, considering how partisan I am and how closely I follow all things political in the US, but I didn't watch it. I got home late from work, flipped it on for a minute for what seemed to be Bush saying "You are so a flip-flopper" and decided I'd seen enough. It's not like Bush had a chance on hell of convincing me to support me or that Kerry could have lost my vote, after all.

Was there anything interesting? Did Bush soil himself, hug the podium and call for his mommy at any point in the debate?


Nope!! But you did miss Kerry making himself more pro-war than Bush. Send he would make a bigger military, spend more, and such. He also improperly stated the tax cuts, the funding of prescription drugs, the college...and so forth. Had Kerry looked at the Federal Budget, the taxcuts actually increased tax revenue. HI SupplySide economics.

But above all...Kerry talked about spending more on military, more aggression, and a "flipflop" of diplomacy and war...im confused...

Vote Nadar...seems like he is the only antiwar candidate.

I have watched the whole thing and I feel badly for those who missed it due to the fact that they were watching during a few obviously old parts and dull ones might I say.

Bush- He had a weak start in my opinion. Stuttered quite a bit and seemed to lose a grip on what he was saying. He had this same problem throughout the speech, were he struggled, stalled, or stopped completely. He ended up finishing stronger then he started though. He was never much of a speaker so I will give him credit that he actually got as far as he did.

Kerry- Started off strong and stayed strong throughout most of the event. He had a few stutters but never really stopped or stalled that was too obvious. He got a good deal of issues taking care of, most obvious was his stance on Iraq and then world policy.


In the general looks of it, Kerry seems to have done better, he (under an instant CBS poll after the debate) got more independant support then Bush, especially from the women, who are the majority of undecided voters at this time. If Bush wishes to recover his errors and stalls he will need to be next to flawless in the Town Hall Style debate, or he will have to hope that Kerry would screw up, which is quite possible.

These are my stances (trying to be equal, but I support Kerry more than Bush).


*To those who wish to argue about my opinion on Bush's strength, I would be happy to try some other time, I am planning on going to sleep in a few minutes. Though needless to say he struggled a good deal in the start of the debate.

I, too, watched the whole thing, even though there were many times when I just wanted to shake the candidates and tell them to answer the question already. And poor Jim Lehrer...how does one tell the President that he can't have thirty seconds to refute?

On the whole, I think Kerry came off better, mostly because he had more prepared sound bites available to him and therefore did not have to resort to the same arguments quite so often.

This may surprise some people, considering how partisan I am and how closely I follow all things political in the US, but I didn't watch it. I got home late from work, flipped it on for a minute for what seemed to be Bush saying "You are so a flip-flopper" and decided I'd seen enough. It's not like Bush had a chance on hell of convincing me to support me or that Kerry could have lost my vote, after all.

Was there anything interesting? Did Bush soil himself, hug the podium and call for his mommy at any point in the debate?


You should have watched, it was actually quite appeasing for the liberal. Kerry was more articulate, more straight-forward, and generally more coherent than Bush. Bush stumbled a lot and he seemed quite redundant on many issues. Overall, Kerry seemed to gain the best on most issues and overall Bush seemed angry whenever the camera got a glimpse of him while Kerry spoke.

Kerry won; yeah, I'm biased, but I'm not exactly a Kerry lover.

This is completely OOC: If only the NS UN operated like this.

Im a canadian, however I do keep up todate with world affairs... unlike most Americans. I can tell you this, alot of what Bush was saying was complete and utter lies, especially what he was saying about North Korea. The United States is completley uninvolved with North Korea, leaving Britain and Russia to deal with them alone (Remember a year ago North Korean Leaders were noted as saying "We will make the United States a sea of fire". And here you are doing nothing about it.). Kerry however never lied about anything... his facts about the state of the world were spot on. His strategies are flawless.

In general:
If you actually keep up to date with world affairs, you will know that voting for Bush is a BIG MISTAKE!

Im a canadian, however I do keep up todate with world affairs... unlike most Americans. I can tell you this, alot of what Bush was saying was complete and utter lies, especially what he was saying about North Korea. The United States is completley uninvolved with North Korea, leaving Britain and Russia to deal with them alone (Remember a year ago North Korean Leaders were noted as saying "We will make the United States a sea of fire". And here you are doing nothing about it.). Kerry however never lied about anything... his facts about the state of the world were spot on. His strategies are flawless.

In general:
If you actually keep up to date with world affairs, you will know that voting for Bush is a BIG MISTAKE!

I agree with voting against Bush. But you are obviously to supportive of the other side. Evidence dictates that not everything was a lie. Even though we have nominal involvement in N. Korea, it is enough, with China, Russia, and Japan at the table as well I don't see N. Korea being able to do much.

And for an empty threat like theirs, I can believe that it was more for attention and maybe in hopes of getting supplies for their starving masses.

Had Kerry looked at the Federal Budget, the taxcuts actually increased tax revenue. HI SupplySide economics.

You mean the economics that didn't work for Nixon? The ones that didn't work for Reagan (don't confuse a natural economic resurgence with something guided by economic policy), something that Bush Senior referred to as "Voodoo Economics", something that most economic experts now point out doesn't make fiscal sense when the rich of this country are 30-70 times richer now than they were proportionally twenty years ago. How much of that was one time gains? How much was loan and bond applicable? Pure revenue makes no sense. Frankly, I look at the deficit, and I can rather clearly see the Budget has failed.

You mean the economics that didn't work for Nixon? The ones that didn't work for Reagan (don't confuse a natural economic resurgence with something guided by economic policy), something that Bush Senior referred to as "Voodoo Economics", something that most economic experts now point out doesn't make fiscal sense when the rich of this country are 30-70 times richer now than they were proportionally twenty years ago. How much of that was one time gains? How much was loan and bond applicable? Pure revenue makes no sense. Frankly, I look at the deficit, and I can rather clearly see the Budget has failed.

I agree with you. What you are saying is basically true.

Vote Nadar...seems like he is the only antiwar candidate.

Here's the thing... Nader will NOT be elected. He hasn't got a snowball's chance in Phoenix. Another point: Antiwar is all well and good, but we're ALREADY in a war. It's too late to spout antiwar now. We can't just dart out and say, "Well, we broke the vase, but it's not our responsibility to glue it back together." We have to be held accountable for what we've done.

--Well, it came down to Iraq and North Korea. Kerry made the mistake of talking about whether we should have gone in at all. The fact is we are there, and now we have to deal with it. Kerry was on the upside however, with his Iraq plan. He almost refuted the flip-flop issue, but he should have spent more time on that. In fact, he should have spent the whole debate on that because if he loses this election, it will be due to flip-flopping.

--As far as North Korea, Kerry made the huge mistake of talking about bilateral dialogue. Bush destroyed Kerry with his come-back about China. And Bush is right, China would not be happy. However, Kerry is correct that Bush let North Korea slide, but again, that is the past. Kerry needs to focus on the present.

--I was surprised at the stance Kerry took on Putin. Bush, usually known to be more radical, said he wanted to ensure democracy. Kerry more or less flat told Putin that Russia was becoming a police state. Kerry should have taken the same stance as Bush, regardless that both of them probably feel the same, that Russia is becoming a police state.

--On nuclear proliferation, there is no doubt that Kerry won that argument. Bush has spent money on proliferation, but so has every other president since Kennedy. But Bush did not increase funding, which Kerry will, and Kerry pointed out that due to Iraq, North Korea is now nuclear.

--All in all, Kerry needs to focus on the present and really make his Iraqi War stance clear. He verged on convincing me he was not a flip-flopper, but again, he needs to go down the line and say this means this and this means this and all of that means I can do the job better than Bush.

--Bush just needs to flat out answer the questions, although for the first hour, Bush was winning with his appeal to the average American. However, at the end of the debate Kerry was in the lead, despite his major mistake with the bilateral North Korea talks.

But above all...Kerry talked about spending more on military, more aggression, and a "flipflop" of diplomacy and war...im confused...




Oh come now, stop with the BS. If you actually paid attention to the debate, you would have seen that near the end Bush himself started flip flopping like crazy. Saying that the US needs to spearhead Iraq and the war on terror only to say that we need to build our alliances and call our allies for help? (he said this after Kerry did, obviously to make it seem like they were on the same page). Bush ran out of ammo quickly, and I seriously do not know where in the high hell Bush stands on the issues. All he did was spew the same old tired crap that he's said all campaign long, I don't think he actually answered a question in the manner Kerry did. Kerry was precise and stated exactly what he planned on doing. Bush on the other hand just tried to make Kerry look bad.

The Bush/Kerry debate is quite possibly the most spectacular ass kicking since Tyson/Williams.

Hmmm... I guess I'm gonna be one of the few here... it seemed to me that Bush di a bit better, but I paid a lot of attention to the little things, and body language.

In the very beginning: Kerry was almost noticibally nervous, I could see his hands shaking. Bush was a bit of a robot, what with banging his hand on the podium quite a bit.

Throughout it, Kerry made several good points, and several other valid ones that I'm inclined to disagree with. They did agree with each other quite a bit more than I thought they would've. Bush pointed out Kerry's flip-flopping quite a few times, but managed to not seem like a jerk, to me at least.

One thing that got me, was how Kerry seemed to think that we should go back to bilateral talks with North Korea. Throughout the debate, he kept saying we should work more closely with other nations, so why should we do that with Korea by ourselves?

One thing I noticed, was during a question, Bush started off by saying that he admired Kerry, his military service, his time in Senate (although not so muchy his record there) and his family. All the while, Kerry just stood there, showing very little emotion. When it came to kerry's rebuttal, he said that he admired Bush's service in office, and his family, and his firm resolve and such, and Bush said thank you several times. That was a big thing to me, it helps me see the character of these men next to each other.

All in all, Kerry did a good job with what he had, but I think Bush did a little better, and was able to refute most things Kerry said, to a point.

And about their speaking: Kerry seemed to be a lot better than the last time I heard him speak, he seems to have gained a lot of confidence in himself, and Bush spoke normally, in the manner that most people speak, i.e. deliberately sometimes, quickly at others, and used quite a few words that the average person uses, like 'folks' and so on.

It still seems too close to call, but I'm for Bush at this point, I agree with his opinions more often than Kerry.

(Yowch, I'm having a hard time getting my thoughts to form coherent sentence structure... sorry.)

Bush on the other hand just tried to make Kerry look bad.
And that, in a nutshell, is his entire campaign. When you've got nothing of your own, you've got to make the other guy look bad, and Bush has nothing of his own--not good, anyway.

It also seems to be a central part of Kerry's campaign. How about we all admit that they both have negative campaigning going on, and that essentially, they have the same objectives in mind, but they differ on the means to accomplish those objectives.

(And that does not bring the past up, only what they want to do now. They both want to finish Iraq as a victory, get N. Korea to get rid of its nukes, stop nuclear proliferation, and curb terrorism.)

i found this interesting:

And that's what people are seeing now is happening in Afghanistan.

Ten million citizens have registered to vote. It's a phenomenal statistic. They're given a chance to be free, and they will show up at the polls. Forty-one percent of those 10 million are women.

the paper i get at home had an article a couple weeks ago where most residents of afgahnistan were registered many times for the vote. the guy they were talking to was mentioning his misfortune of only having received 4 cards while his neighbour got 15 and could thus sell more cards to people who want to vote multiple times.

I haven't watched it, but I recorded it. I don't know that I'll ever get around to watching it though; I doubt either one of them said anything that would have surprised me.

It isn't what they say, but how they say it that should sway anybody who is inclined to actually watch a full debate should be judging.

I went into the debate as a Californian mostly Green voter with plans to cast my vote for Cobb. I didn't like the way Kerry treated Dean months ago, nor have I liked his television spots. But tonight he said just the right things and in the right way to convince me that perhaps I've vote for him, even if he already has California's 55 votes.

I felt that while they both were just sticking to one theme, that Kerry's message, "We tried it your way, it didn't work." was not only perfectly valid, but also Bush's refusal to acknowledge that is what Kerry was saying really made me consider that perhaps Kerry really needs a high popular vote total as well.

Basically I'll be interested to hear what they both have to say over the course of the next few debates.

Bush himself did a lot of question dodging and "flip-flopping" in the debate, not the least in the very beginning of the debate.

When asked about what he expected to happen with homeland security if Kerry was elected, he flippantly dismissed the possibility of losing the election and then proceeded to not talk about it. (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=7147811#post7147811) (Click the link for a the direct quote and context.)

This is completely OOC: If only the NS UN operated like this.

Sometimes it kinda does. ;)

About the Korea thing. I think some of you need to research it a little more before making blanket statements. North Korea is somewhat different than most of the problems in the world. Where Iraq was weak and unable to afford its neighbors much trouble, North Korea spends an incredible amount of it's budget on military and as a result has no infrastructure or public support system to ensure that it has a safe economy. North Korea has the potential and ability to strike several of our key allies in the east, most notably China (whom they'd hesitate to attack as they rely on them for what little economic trade they engage in.) and Japan (Whom they'd probably like to fire a few missiles at since most of the asian world has yet to forgive Japan's Invasion, even half a century later.)

Granted, N. Korea bragged that they'd lay waste to America but the catch is that they MIGHT actually be able to do it. That kind of situation takes a little more finesse.

Added to that is the problem we face with Jing Zhong Ri (That's his name in chinese, if I remember correctly he's referred to as Kim Jong Il). The man is not quite right in the head, hence the fact that he's let his country go to waste. N. Korea doesn't really worry about getting food from china or South Korea. Most of that aid work happens completely independent of the North Korean government and is focused only on saving the starving masses.

North Korea is a really complicated pickle, hence the relentless six side talks involving us, japan, north korea, south korean, china and Russia on disarming North Korea, and convincing the N. Korean government to reform to a point that will at least allow it's neighbors to worry less and it's citizens to eat.

I think that no one is completely sure how to fix it and Kerry gave the right answer. Only time will tell how to solve that problem without creating a massive military conflict. However, Bush has angered Jing Zhong Ri and now the US is almost isolated from the talks, making us useless.

I was watching, and will most likely watch the three to come, as well. Interesting days we live in...

Yes, I agree. Interesting.