C-SPAN2 is once again the best place to watch the debate!

Interesting I believe Kerry won.

Anybody know what an off-road deisel engine is. Bush said their emissions were being cut by the clear skies act.

After the first debate, I can just imagine the tongue lashing that was given to Bush by Karl Rove. This time he did much, much better.

Even so, Kerry is a much better actor than Bush, and slings the bullshit with much more clarity and sophistication. That is a given.

Then again, its harder to debate when you aren't slinging a whole lot of bullshit. Does Bush exaggerate the plusses and minimize the minuses? Of course he does. What politician does not? What politician could and expect to be elected?

But I think Bush was trying very hard to stay within the scope of truth, however fuzzy the lines were. Kerry obviously wasn't even trying given the impossibility of the claims he was making.

"Back to the debate: The papers predictably bend over backward to offer Objective Analysis. A Los Angeles Times fact-check has the headline (online, anyway) "Kerry, Bush beat around the truth in debate." But while that headline emphasizes both the candidates' inaccuracies, the actual story outlines twice as many falsehoods committed by Bush. And while Kerry's distortions were more in the neighborhood of misestimates ("some analysts say he is underestimating the cost of his healthcare plan"), more of Bush's inaccuracies fell into the category of just plain wrong (Bush saying the Duelfer report said U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq weren't working, when in fact the report said years of inspections worked extremely well). If Bush uttered more outright fibs, why not say that?"

--Emily Biuso

Bush won the debate with Kerry
- Debra J. Saunders
Saturday, October 2, 2004
I'LL CONCEDE, style counts. It was fair game for critics to say Democratic candidate Al Gore's demeanor defined his performance in the 2000 presidential debates. In that spirit, my verdict is: On the demeanor question, George W. Bush lost Thursday night. But he won on substance. You can count me in agreement with the 37 percent of Americans who told the CNN/Gallup poll that Bush got the better of John Kerry.
Kerry looked good and talked better. But every argument Kerry hurled against Bush also worked against Kerry.

Consider Kerry on the president's mistake in going after Saddam Hussein before capturing Osama bin Laden. Or, as Kerry intoned, "We can't leave a failed Iraq. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a mistake of judgment to go there and take the focus off Osama bin Laden." I reread Kerry's very long and also ponderous remarks before he voted in favor of the October 2002 resolution authorizing force in Iraq. Kerry never mentioned Osama bin Laden. (Is that the fault of Bush, too?
And it's an odd omission considering the Kerry pose as international know- it-all, who ostensibly sees international affairs with a clarity sorely missing in Bush.

During the debate, Kerry observed that the first President Bush did not push U.S. troops beyond Basra. Said Kerry, as Bush pere "wrote in his book, because there was no viable exit strategy. And he said our troops would become occupiers in a bitterly hostile land. That's exactly where we find ourselves today."

So why did the world-savvy Kerry vote for the war resolution?
Whole article here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/02/EDG8E92FVG1.DTL

KERRY: Well, let me tell you straight up: I've never changed my mind about Iraq. I do believe Saddam Hussein was a threat. I always believed he was a threat. Believed it in 1998 when Clinton was president. I wanted to give Clinton the power to use force if necessary.

But I would have used that force wisely, I would have used that authority wisely, not rushed to war without a plan to win the peace.

I would have brought our allies to our side. I would have fought to make certain our troops had everybody possible to help them win the mission.

This president rushed to war, pushed our allies aside. And Iran now is more dangerous, and so is North Korea, with nuclear weapons. He took his eye off the ball, off of Osama bin Laden.

my worry is is that, you know, it looks like it's from Canada, and it might be from a third world

During the debate, Kerry observed that the first President Bush did not push U.S. troops beyond Basra. Said Kerry, as Bush pere "wrote in his book, because there was no viable exit strategy. And he said our troops would become occupiers in a bitterly hostile land. That's exactly where we find ourselves today."

So why did the world-savvy Kerry vote for the war resolution?

Thursday night, Kerry also likened going into Iraq in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with "Franklin Roosevelt invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor. That's what we have here."

Then why did Kerry vote for the war resolution?

More Kerry: "Thirty-five to 40 countries in the world had a greater capability of making weapons at the moment the president invaded (Iraq) than Saddam Hussein."

Again: Why did Kerry vote for the war resolution?

Kerry's apologists say that the resolution did not authorize the war. Or that it only authorized U.S. force under certain conditions, such as moving against Iraq with the agreement of the United Nations. Not true. The resolution said, "The president is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" (my italics) to defend U.S. interests and enforce the U.N. Security Council resolutions that Hussein was flouting.

What's more, Bush had warned the United Nations that it would be irrelevant if it failed to enforce its resolutions even as Kerry says he believed Bush would only go to war as a "last resort."