Thursday, September 30, 2004
"The future belongs to freedom, not fear..."
F-ck a media post-mortem. From the 5 minutes I watched on MSNBC at the end of the debate tonight it's obvious that media doesn't want to admit what was crazy clear to me: Kerry.won.the.debate... period. Listening to Chris Matthews & co. try to claim Kerry's position on Iraq was still not clear was more spin than I could take or than I'd even give the GOP credit for.
Kerry quickly put to bed early in the exchange the ongoing lines that Bush and the GOP have tried to pin on him throughout the campaign that he's inconsistent, would go to the UN for "permsission slips" to defend America and has been unsupportive of the Iraq war & the troops. By the end of the debate a redundant Bush seemed almost desperate as he repeated the same tired talking points quoting Kerry lines about Iraq being a "grand diversion" and it being "the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" long after Kerry had lucidly explained his posititon behind those statements. And if he said "it's hard work" referring to Iraq and the "war on terror" one more time, I was ready to toss a shoe through my TV screen. Can somebody give son some public speaking lessons for real? Seriously, in four years he still hasn't gotten any better which explains why he's never done any real press conferences.
The debate was far more substantive than I had anticipated although my expectations were so low it wasn't hard for that to be the case. Kerry was also surprisingly clear and on-message and seemed to take to the short answer format that many thought would trip him up.
What we witnessed tonight though was Kerry stepping his game up and presenting himself as confident and the viable leadership alternative to Bush that many swing voters and moderates were looking for. On the other hand Bush was exposed as the empty shell whose talents fall far short of the leadership standard the US and world needs right now. Kerry had a better grasp of the issues, seemed more statesmanlike and presidential, more on point and just seemed to have his game a lot tighter. Suddenly Kerry=ABB (Anybody But Bush) might now become WNK (Why Not Kerry?).
I'd be shocked if after tonight Kerry doesn't experience a nice bounce and some real momentum that will hopefully revinvigorate his campaign and make this race more competitive as we turn into the homestretch. Then again, if the media try to spin things more favorably for Bush like they have done repeatedly after his State of the Union addresses and for previous debates he's been in (yo, he lost to Gore every time they debated in 2000 from my p.o.v.), Kerry will still face a tough uphill battle turning things around.
For me though, sh1t just got real interesting again y'all.
