Second Presidential Debate
| Excuse-moi. Je suis en retard (et je suis en retard pour mon age aussi). | Excuse me. I'm late (and I'm also retarded). |
We felt the juvenile need to somehow work that into our French oral last semester, so I thought I'd share it with you, since this is a little overdue. Alright, in order of occurrence:
BUSH twice said 75% of Al-Qaeda have been brought to justice. Given almost 100% of Islamic terrorism is now credited to Al-Qaeda or groups closely associated with them, I'd like to know how the administration came to a total number of Al-Qaeda members to know they have 75% of them.
BUSH said the UN sanctions were not effective in removing Saddam Hussein. Thankfully KERRY very quickly pointed out the effect of sanctions was NOT to remove Saddam Hussein. If the US administration was hoping sanctions would remove Saddam, they had plans in place to get rid of him long before 9/11. I know this is fairly well accepted, but it's another slip of the tongue by Bush lending credence to the claims.
KERRY seemed to spend far too much time speaking directly to Charles Gibson, the host for the debate. This hurts him in terms of BUSH's appeal to people's emotions rather than their intellect. Was that harsh? That was harsh.
BUSH: "Iraq is going to be free, and America is going to be better off for it." Again, later he talked about spreading freedom, because 'liberty can change habits'. He said similar things in the first debate, and I said it then, forced freedom is no freedom. Yes, Iraqis are happy to be free from Saddam, but they want to define their freedom. Nobody wants someone else to force so-called freedom on them that is really only looking out for the interests of those who are forcing it. And that's exactly what the statement says. Iraq hasn't been freed in the interests of the future of Iraq, but in the interests of the future of America.
KERRY, even when not being accused of being 'wishy-washy' or 'flip-flopping', is talking about how he's not changing positions on issues. The man doth protest too much, methinks.
BUSH, in response to a question about America's social standing in the world community, said people may not agree with the decisions they make, but "people love America". That's just false, and the American people should be aware of that. People do not love America. However right or wrong, ill-informed or otherwise their opinions are, the fact is they don't.
KERRY: "He rushed to war without a plan to win the peace. [...] Winning the peace is larger than the military component." Basically Kerry said he had enough troops to win the war, but not enough to secure peace, which is why the situation spiralled out of control. I think Kerry won that exchange.
When asked what he would do if Iran became an immediate threat, KERRY couldn't say. Instead of answering the question he chose to talk about what BUSH hasn't done, and so allowed North Korea and Iran to reach the positions they're in. Too weak on Kerry's part. Express an opinion!
Taxes - boring.
I liked what KERRY had to say on abortion. I would have to say I'm generally against abortion, for various reasons, but it's not a clear-cut issue. Kerry said that as a Catholic he had very strong beliefs about it, "But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever. I can't do that."
Alright, that's the end of this. Almost everything keeps coming back to the war in Iraq. For me that helps Kerry, but if I was living in the US and worried about taxes, I'd also be concerned with domestic issues. I think talking excessively about Iraq is probably helping Bush in the long run.
the earley edition - Posted by Dave @ 10/12/2004 01:53:00 pm || ||
