October 13, 2004
Live Blogging 3rd Debate
10:30 - Consensus is a tie, both from the chat room and the TV talking heads. Bill at INDC has a good wrap-up. An hour later, I've let out a deep breath. Bush didn't screw the pooch; the election is still close; maybe he got a little 'beat expectations' momentum.
10:28 - Closing statements. Even more boring than the rest. Kerry almost got through 90 minutes without mentioning Vietnam. Bush - optimistic Texas painting seems like a good closer.
A sickening miasma of mush and occasional outright lies, along with nothing meaningful. This has been more or less like Jutland. The Germans thought they won, and the British thought they won, and nobody on the sidelines knows who won.
10:24 - Bush: "I learned to listen to 'em. To stand up straight and not scowl. ... She speaks better English than I do." Kerry: "I guess we all married up. Maybe me more than the others."
10:22 - NEWS FLASH: 98 Senators fired; all upper house power is concentrated in Senator John McCain, R-USA.
10:21 - "The President initially did a great job, but boy, has he screwed it up since!"
10:16 - Bush started with a good answer about prayer, but got all tangled up and wandered off the point. Close, but no cigar. Bush said Christian, Jew, or Muslim; but insults all pagans and Wiccans by omission! Intolerant Bush! An omission which Kerry seized on by invoking Native American beliefs.
10:15 - Kerry's fear-mongering about the black vote is sickening. Is the Urban League a civil rights organization?
10:12 - Bush has not scowled once. Rove must've gotten to him. Kerry keeps referring to "the Clinton years" like they were Paradise onEarth.
10:10 - Iraq is a very domestic issue. "I know something about prosecuting." The Iowa drug lord just magically got a AK-47 the day after the ban ended
10:06 - Kerry is going to double the number of special forces. He is gonna train them personally, he fought in Nam you know... And using stem-cell research, he's going to clone them.
10:05 - Kerry: "backdoor draft"
10:02 - "Right here in Arizona ... " Kerry and Bush agree: Bush won't have a litmus test for judges, and Kerry will.
9:58 - Kerry: I'll patrol our border in a swift boat. The president is misleading again. You don't need education to make a good living. Why, just look at my wife!
9:54 - Kerry: "Take-home pay lowest since 1929." Schieffer serves up the minimum wage softball. He pounds away on "women's pay."
(Brief technical hiccup. Sorry.)
9:35 - 1-0 NYY End of 4th. Bush on lawsuits and medical liability. That topic always bores me.
9:33 - "I believe everyone is entitled to their own definition of infanticide."
9:30 - Kerry mentioned God. The secular wing of the Democratic Party just had a conniption fit. "We're all God's children." ... unless you're a fetus, of course. Kerry quotes the Bible; good move.
9:28 - Does Kerry looks like a potato left in the fridge too long? Schieffer plants a hot potato for Bush with "Is homosexuality a choice?"
9:25 - "Senator, no one is playing with your votes. ... There's a mainstream in America, and you sit on the far-left bank!"
9:22 - Kerry: "Bush discovered Boeing because I brought it up." Huh? Kerry: "We're talking jobs, not education. And how about those Pell Grants?"
9:19 - Wipe your mouth, George, you got stuff dangling from the right corner. 1-0 NYY end of 3rd
9:17 - PAYGO = You pay, and he goes and raises your taxes. - Kinda lame.
9:15 - My 13 y.o. son says Kerry is using propaganda technique called "plain folk." Heh.
9:12 - Bob "Nosferatu" Scheiffer doesn't need a flu shot, you have to be alive to get a flu shot. Bush: "A plan is not a litany of complaints." Kerry is accepting product placement tonight? Blue Cross/Blue Shield?
9:10 - Flu shot qustion. Bush answres, while Kerry licks his chops. Three points if "outsourcing" is in Kerry's response on the English vaccines. So far he hits health insurance.
9:08 - Bush is not blinking, he's wincing - Rove keeps fiddling with his radio. Sounds like one of those "exaggerations." My son goes 'ouch!" Here'e the link on the OBL quote.
9:06 - 1-0 NYY End of 2. Both candidates TOTALLY ignoring 'domestic' issues. So far, it's all Iraq, Afghanistan, "wrong war," and "nuisance."
9:03 - Welcoming applause as the fighters go to their corners, armed only with Botox and mysterious things in their backs. Six points for first one to brings up the Nobel Prize Winner from ASU.
9:00 - Schieffer says "Are you ready to RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUJMMBLLLLLE?"
8:55 - The Bush twins always draw more applause. Mathews' gang thinks Kerry will say "Iraq" first.
8:52 - The candidates enter the room; big applause. Talking heads talking about Chris Reeve.
8:50 - Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC is bashing Bush on the "no vetoes."
8:42 - No real pre-show consensus on expectations or favorites.
8:35 - Chat room filling up. No hot rumors yet. Kids still watching "Scream Team."
Featuring insights from many online Chat Politburo members:
Octopod
feste
kahoks
Country Pundit
kdan1951
DougB
Unabrewer
Elric, thesaur, DC-Diva, PagybnIvan, -Thief-, dsmtoday, Lune, and jackass.
To join Politburo chat room:
http://acepilots.com/chat/phpMyChat.php3
Create username and password; easy, no details needed.
Then click "CHAT."
Leave the default message as is: "create your own 'PUBLIC' room (leave blank).
The room is open any time. I'll be there by 8:45 ET.
Other live-bloggers: Llamabutchers, La Shawn Barber
Posted by Commissar at October 13, 2004 08:37 PM
I will be live-blogging as well, tovarisch.
Steve Bragg
DOUBLE TOOTHPICKS
Whoa! You still have the chat room? I totally forgot about that. What will I be doing tonight? Anything but watching the debate!
Extracted from: Rusty Shackleford at October 13, 2004 02:50 PMMe too, Darling.
Extracted from: Juliette at October 13, 2004 03:34 PMI dearly wish I could live blog with you guys, but sadly (ha), we have tickets for the Cardinal/Astros playoff game. Will check you when we get home to see what you thought. Kahoks-Diane
Extracted from: Diane at October 13, 2004 04:13 PMDoes Kerry have a plan?
Extracted from: Joe R. the Unabrewer at October 13, 2004 04:44 PM"Does Kerry have a plan?"
Joe, Kerry's plan is one of the most sophisticated and talked about plans of all time. He has planned so well that anyone that does not understand his plan by now is an ignoramus, obviously this goes with out saying but I was feeling charitable.
/sarcasm
*hides*
Extracted from: Lune at October 13, 2004 06:06 PMSox v. Yanks, Bush v. Kerry, Sox v. Yanks, Bush v. Kerry. What to do, what to do...
Extracted from: Alan at October 13, 2004 08:15 PMWait...was I called insightful? Too kind.
Extracted from: Joe R. the Unabrewer at October 13, 2004 08:50 PMKerry owned on immigration, but I don't believe he would fix the borders, the French would not approve, it would not pass his international test.
Extracted from: Lune at October 13, 2004 09:59 PMRemember, Comrade Commissar,
When Pravda and Tass say "tie" it must mean the Capitalist whipping dog won.
Who needs jokes in a debate, anyways?
Lysander
Extracted from: Lysander at October 13, 2004 10:49 PMDoes Kerry have a plan?
Of course Komerade Kerry has a plan! But, far be it for that great Komerade to disclose it to us burgeoise and proletariats.
Lysander
Extracted from: Lysander at October 13, 2004 10:51 PMHow is it a draw? Universally on all channels I'm hearing variations of this remark by the MSM and cable pundits. Kerry won the first and the second was a draw. Combine this with what is also being said to varying degrees by the same pundits, that Kerry was more defensive this time and this was Bush's best performance, how does that equal anything other than a Bush win? If you accept Kerry won, they drew in the second and Bush looked his best tonight and Kerry was MORE defensive, that's the ONLY way it can be called.
Hugh McBryde
Extracted from: Prakk at October 13, 2004 10:53 PMSorry, Commissar, but I have to agree with Hugh; I'm calling this a Bush win. Kerry showed flashes of intelligence and style but he was much more on the defensive and didn't look very good on camera this time. Bush deep-sixed the scowl and did a good job of sticking it to Kerry across a wide range of issues.
Extracted from: Joe at October 13, 2004 10:58 PMI dunno, I say draw just because both men didn't wet themselves. Maybe I missed something or underestimate the electorate. Still, since this was supposed to be Bush's weak debate, maybe he gets something from that...but I dunno.
Extracted from: Elric at October 13, 2004 11:07 PMHey, don't get me wrong, I think Bush won all three on substance. He just looked liked he wanted to be somewhere else in the first one.
Hugh McBryde
Extracted from: Prakk at October 13, 2004 11:12 PMMy take is that Bush's debates both this year and in 2000 tend to be heavily talking-points oriented. Kerry memorized some phrases, but he improvised a lot more. Bush had spiels memorized for each topic, and he dutifully recited them. But in a few situations, where something unexpected came up, he showed his weaknesses.
I thought that on personality, Bush might have won tonight, and personality is often all-important. Except there's one problem.
Bush has had a different personality in every debate, and it's damned confusing by now.
In the first debate, he sort of whined a lot and kept repeating the same phrases, a la Rainman ("Definitely hard work. Definitely. Iraq. Definitely hard work. Hard work. Definitely.")
In the second debate, he looked like he was auditioning for the role of Billy the Kid in a B-grade made-for-TV movie. He swaggered around and generally tried to outcompete Kerry for the spotlight.
Then tonight he shifted into his "compassionate conservative" mode, more or less the persona he used in 2000 when he was campaigning.
I frankly find it all very disorienting, particularly coming from a guy who's selling himself as consistent. Did anyone else notice this stuff?
Dasvidanya!
Here is our take on the 3rd debate. Bush is the winner. Just look at the quotes we sited.
http://www.rightviews.com/article.php?id=213
Extracted from: OJ at October 14, 2004 02:13 AMIn the opening gambit when Kerry mentioned Reagan, Roosevelt and JFK, Bush could have mentioned that in the Cuban missile crisis JFK did not wait to build an alliance before blockading Cuba.
The two candidates sounded like they were replaying recorded messages at times to me.
I picked some quotes from the debate, but i'm unsure about their meaning:
"Do you believe dorkiness is a choice?"
"We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to my daughters, who know me well, they would tell you that I'm being who I was, I'm being who I was born as.
I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice. I've met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a school because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it.
And I've met wives who are supportive of their husbands or vice versa when they finally sort of broke out and allowed themselves to live who they were, who they felt God had made them."
I'm perplexed, komrades, I start to feel I'm kinda dorky too.
Extracted from: reservist at October 14, 2004 11:26 AM
