"We're all God's children."

Unless you're a fetus.

I know we're on somewhat different sides on this issue, Bill, but I think you'll agree that it's...what's the word...inconsistent?

Schieffer did alright? His questions to Bush were right out of Kerry's talking points!

His questions to Kerry were softballs.

He was by far the worst of the 4 moderators. I rate him a "D." He stunk up the place.

I did like how when Bush cracked his jokes about his family at the end, the audience in the hall laughed. When Kerry cracked his joke, all I saw was Schieffer tripping over himself to guffaw at the comment.

That said, he wasn't anywhere near as bad as Lehrer.

Anyone watching Fox News? Terry McCauliff is currently squirming as Sean Hannity squashes him under his thumb.

squish squish :)

what's the word...inconsistent?

I think that Kerry can state the same talking points (slightly modified) ok, but he has no conviction. Yes, he's inconsistent. Freedom of religion and disparate belief goes so far, but probably doesnt extend to third trimester abortions with most people.

I know one of the "major news network" statements that Kerry was citing was ABC, was the other one CBS? Those two both appearing in the same gaffe would be delicious.

Did Bush REALLY say that??

Accroding to major news networks, memos typed in 1972 cannot be discerned from memos produced yesterday on MS Word.

I thought Bush won, but the whole "winning" thing is totally subjective. Unless one of them has a demeanor malfunction (as Bush did in the 1st debate), the question of who "won" on substance comes down to which candidate's positions you believe are most correct.

I have to agree with Bill, tho -- a Spoonsful of Prozac might help the debate go down better with some right-leaning bloggers. Sometimes it seems like Ann Coulter is the only conservative willing to fight for her positions. Why is it that a self-describe 97-pound weakling is often more courageous than most of her colleagues on the right? Defeatism is never the road to victory.

Agree with TallDave, and made a similar comment at my own blog. Since I agree with the positions Bush takes more often, I thought he did better on the substance of the debate. But at least I acknowledge the bias involved.

Neither candidate said, and no candidate ever will say, the hard truth about what needs to get done on Social Security. We need to raise the retirement age to reflect increased life expectancy in the later years of life.

Am I the only one who thought Kerry's description of his mother's last words sounded a little, uh... phoney?

If anything were a soundbite like Reagans "I won't exploit, for political purposes, my oponents youth and inexperience" it would be "I want to remind people listening tonight that a plan is not a litany of complaints""

Bush absolutely won this debate. Kerry was the same Kerry, except this time he jumbled more sentences in a train wreck of thought than a person with turrets reading shakespear.

I think Schieffer did a very good job with questions. He gave Bush many opportunities for the last word.

No moderaters even came close to screwing it up like Lehrer.

I couldn't help but wonder whether Kerry was stumping for that highly sought after Blue Cross/Blue Shield vote.

And, I agree Schieffer did better than I expected.

Win to Bush.

man, its a love fest in here!

i agree though, i was not nearly as impressed with kerry as i was during the first debate. i thought bush was clearly more relaxed, and did handle talking about what he dubbed his personal issues (faith, family) in public much better than did kerry.

i just wonder, what do you guys make of bush's laughter after kerry citing the quote about obl? "would i say that?" was bush's response. cspan is running the footage of his press conference in '02 when he said "i'm really not that concerned with him."

i guess he would say that.

One thing that really bugged me: what was with the moment where Bush gave a quick 15 second answer and then threw the rest of his two minutes away, giving Kerry a full 90 seconds to attack him? I didn't quite get the strategery there.

Kerry looked like death warmed over...

One thing is clear: Scheiffer served up a set of super biased questions...I don't think Mary Cahill could have written better questions for Kerry...

We must replace the MSM...they are no longer credible...

And in 2008 we must have totally new faces moderating these debates...no one from the MSM...

On a question by question count on my live blog here, it's Bush 13-4. Overall I think W won on points.

I didn't get the segues from jobs to education. Must have come out of some female focus group.

Bush connected on faith and loving his wife, even if you don't share his religious orientation. Sen. Pampered Cipher couldn't even bring himself to say "I married a lively, educated and compassionate woman." Went right to his dead mother.

Bush's strategy is to shore up his base above all. He succeeded there.

The one good think Schieffer did was ask about irrigation.

Have to disagree with you about Bush gaffes. I did think he made one big one - his answer on minimum wage. What a perfect opportunity to talk about job creation! and he completely whiffed. Overall though, I thought he completely trounced Kerry (or would have if Kerry had actually decided to debate him on the questions being asked).

Bush for president

As I have said in other forums, conventional wisdom and MSM/Cable punditry have been saying roughly the same thing, Kerry won the first, the second was a tie, Bush Did MUCH better tonight, and Kerry was more on the defensive. Logicly that means the last debate cannot be a tie and since Bush did better than the first two, Kerry worse than the first two, IT HAS TO BE A BUSH WIN. At least according to the punditry.

Hugh McBryde

I didn't watch any of the debate - I was having too much fun hitting the livebloggers. I must say Bill, that this is the best round-up.

I know someone has to watch it in order to blog, but luckily it didn't have to be me. I'm still giggling over Michelle Malkin and Spoons... and yes I like them both... you earn 2 points for each of those scores. On the whole, this is a much more enjoyable way to view the debate.

Bush controlled this debate, he was leadership, optimism and a chief exec who watches the macro while delegating the micro.

John Kerry was Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic

knows the price of everything and the value of nothing

(as I've stated on my blog)

Interestingly, my very rather non-political 21 y/o daughter (wild-child Heather) watched most of the debate with me. She was really put off by Kerry, even as she had a few disagreements with GW. For her GW was a "real" person while Kerry left her cold (as well as many of his answers left her scratching her head and looking at me..and she is a sharp cookie).

GW beautifully handled the loaded questions about faith and same-sex marriage. There has been this rather insulting meme that GW is some sort of brain-rotted fundie out to convert USA into a theocracy (there's are particularly loathesome ad from the National Jewish Democratic Council to that effect recently, so offensive even the ADL criticizes it) and even people of different faiths or no faith couldn't help but understand GW's sincere personal relationship with his faith and how it gives him a foundation. I found his words so wonderfully echoed John Kennedy. Kerry, on the other hand, seemed singularly unnerved by the question and fumbled all over the place between Catholicism and Native American beliefs.

John Kerry made a very large mistake by bringing Dick Cheney's daughter into the fray. She has stayed out of sight by her own chosing. Now that she has been brought center stage ina manne disgusting to most voters, I believe this is the one thing that will resonate against Kerry more than his liberal politics. This in addition to John Edwards saying people will get up out of their wheelchair and walk has the making of a disaster. This is the first time I can ever remember something this heinous occuring during a debate or campaign. This crosses the line and once the bell has been rung, it cannot be unrung. They said it and now they own it.

** Kerry's best moment: Tie: "Bush on fiscal discipline - like Tony Soprano to Law & Order..." and self-effacing "Some would say I've married up ..."

No thoughts on Tony Soprano but couldn't disagree more about the "married up" attempt at a joke. Has he nothing nice to say about his wife (except imply that she's wealthy)? --The camera cut to Theresa (looking like she's going to kill someone) says it all.

My Wife was completely aghast, and even felt sorry for Theresa.

I actually wastn'that bothere by the questions, other than the really stupic flu shot question.

I really dont expect my president during a time of war to be so anal that he is supervising directly how many vaccines we are getting.

I think Bush won soundly though, I don't even think it was close. I think Kerry looked awful this time, and he didn't answer the majority of the questions.

Nice wrap-up. When I saw Allah hadn't posted in some days, and there was no wrapup on his site, I panicked, and started collecting opinions on my blog. I've got school tomorrow, though, so I'm glad you're handling it.

I think Bush did well, and Kerry committed seppuku a couple of times (not sure how that's possible but there it is) - in particular when he talked about being Catholic, and then said that homosexuality was not a choice in the same answer. And I thought it was funny how Kerry kept going back to previous questions, and not answering the ones that were in front of him. I guess when your position is that nuanced, it takes more than 90 seconds to explain.

"Hell, I totally disagree with him on gay marriage, but I thought that he gave a good answer. I'm non-religious, and I felt him on the religion question."

Well I am religious, and I think the difference is that Bush answered these (and the family one) personally, and from the heart-he wasn't speaking talking points or rhetoric so much as what he really believes.

Kerry came across as fake and false, and he wasn't personal at all in the question, and he just seemed cold or something. Even his answer about his family I think wasn't very good-it just didn't feel personal, and you would think with that kind of softball he would have done better.

I thought Kerry's married up comment was crass, and I was bothered that he didn't really talk about Teresa in a loving way.

Oh and I thought the reference to Mary Cheney was awful-I thought it was bad in the VP debate, and I dont understand why they did it in this one-and considering Marybeth Cahill said she was "fair game" and Edwards did it that there is some plan to bring her in.

I also thought he was extremely out of line to presume to know her opinion on the issue-he basically not only brought her into the debate, but put words into her mouth.

I really dont expect my president during a time of war to be so anal that he is supervising directly how many vaccines we are getting.

That's why he has minions. And, when our minions don't do their jobs, it's our fault.

(Jeff Jarvis offers a longer discussion of this at buzzmachine.com)

Kerry was most foul in alluding to Cheney's daughter.
As always Kerry came across smooth and oily. He just doesn't get it, he needs passion and committment to emanate from him. He's a man of all seasons for all people. Kerry doesn't seem to realize he cannot please all of the people all of the time nor is he going to be able to fool all of the people all of the time.
What ever talents Kerry may have he's hosed through his fakeness and flipflopping.

The Flu vaccine question was just a chance for Kerry to pander and bloviate. There's this little detail of American companies not wanting to produce vaccines. If we dig around in the Constitution and the US Code for weeks we would not find Presidential authority to command companies to make vaccine.
American companies stay away from making them for the simple reason that there are always a predictable, although small, number of both bad reactions and people who have problems that may or may not be related to the vaccination but happen right after. Then come the lawsuits. Big lawsuits.
Short of dictatorial powers their isn't much a President can do.

Immediate debate aftermath thoughts immediately updated here.

It's funny how on the left-wing blogs, Kerry crushed Bush, while on the right-wing blogs, Bush crushed Kerry, but in the polls, its pretty evenly split with a lot of people saying it was a tie. I guess if you take the sparkle-eyed cheerleaders from each side and average them, you have some idea of what normal people think.

Scheiffer -
In the second Q Bob was setting it up and he made reference to "whomever is selected this term..."
I found this remarkable from a seasoned political type, who would accidently misspeak SELected for ELected? Only an Gore-adoree/Bush-hater, I imagine.

Flu shots -
I was waiting to hear explicitly (he did imply it) that the shortages are caused by only two firms making 50% and 50%. If we had more producers the loss wouild be less, and they would be cheaper too (check your old Econ 101 texts).
That was a great opening for Bush to take on the trail lawyers again with the threat of lawsuits preventing many manufacturers from producing (and creating jobs... hmmm).

UNRELATED TO THREAD-
Where is the info on Kerry's "other than" Honorable Discharge documented 6 years after his 6-year tour was over and suspiciouly after J. Carter absolved all draft-dodgers and otherwise anti-war types?

You rock!

Tom-the thread you requested, although it appears that there may not be anything to this story afterall-although I still think Kerry should sign form 180.

http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/001140.php

Remember when WJC was president and his daughter was 'off limits'? Meaning the only time she was available to the media was for puff pieces and to show support for cheating dog Daddy. I actually think this is a good idea and is how it should be. Funny how that's all different with Bush's kids and Cheyney's daughter. I don't believe that she's (Cheyney's daughter) a public person though I could be wrong. She's not making vapid policy statements to the best of my knowledge there's no controversy surrounding her. But I guess it's OK to invade her privacy as long as it could possibily hurt Bush.

I missed most of the debate dealing with a family issue - but my wife watched it and thought Kerry was horrible. She thought he never answered the questions asked, instead opted for pre scripted talking points, and came off as a bullying a-hole.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0410140127oct14,1,1969341.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed

- Having watched them for 4 1/2 hours, voters now know that Kerry is more adept at criticizing Bush's record than he is at articulating affordable solutions that have a snowball's chance of getting through Congress. Equally maddening for debate buffs: Bush never admits a mistake.

- Listening to Kerry parse tax policy is to know who has the bigger brain. To listen to Bush talk about faith and family is to know who has the bigger heart.

I agree with "Another Thought". The line up of questions played right into the Kerry Platform. Bush was given EXTREMELY dangerous political questions. They were trying to set him up to fall.

Bill,

Schieffer did not do ok. We have had 4 debates this election season. The 2 middle ones had decent moderation if not completely non-partisan. The first and 4th were disgraces for moderation.

As long as the media is involved in the process they will either moderate from the stance of favoring one candiate over another or frame the moderation to creat a horse race.

Until and unless real moderation is injected into the debates, the electorate is cheated. The moderator should be a person without media, party, or candidate preference or at least able to sub it to the function.

Until the moderation of the debates is changed, they are meaningless as a method of counterpointing the candidates views.

The comment about Kerry marrying up *would* have been a delightfully humorous moment- IF he'd followed it up with something nice about his wife. Instead, he made it clear that the only nice thing he could say about her was that she was rich, and then he went on to reveal that his character is so flawed that his dying mother was compelled to remind him to have integrity.
There were four young women ( watching the debate with this old (42) woman, and we all felt sorry for Teresa at that moment.

Kerry Spot says this morning Schieffer should be pelted with rotten fruit.

At the least. Some of his questions appeared to have been prepared by Mary Beth Cahill.

Sorry, it appears I was wrong on on em point...

Michelle Malkin tells me I am wrong. I trust her way more than I trust myself.

Apologies to all....

Kerry stole the "marrying up" bit from Brian Mulroney's Reagan eulogy.

It cracked everyone up because everyone thinks Kerry married Theresa for his money, but it wasn't heartwarming in the way Mulroney's anecdote was. Reason? He didn't really express any admiration of his wife... there was just the surprise of him acknowleging in a self-deprecating manner what people suspect about him - that he , with mercenary guile, advanced his personal goals by picking a wife with dough.

"It's funny how on the left-wing blogs, Kerry crushed Bush, while on the right-wing blogs, Bush crushed Kerry, but in the polls, its pretty evenly split with a lot of people saying it was a tie."

From what I've seen, the polls give it to Kerry unanimously (disregarding non-scientific online polls). There was one that gave it to Kerry by only one point, but it also happened to be weighted 38% Republican to 31% Democrat.

Also, while Republicans and Democrats split predictably along party lines, independents tended to favor Kerry.

"And in 2008 we must have totally new faces moderating these debates...no one from the MSM..."

My bet is it won't be Bill O'Reilly.

Kerry's is sure tempting us aging baby boomers who haven't managed our lives well. Medicare at 55? Sounds good if it keeps me from losing my house (after losing my job).

I don't consider myself a homophobe, just the way Kerry said "lesbian" made me wince. I wish we could return to the days when you never, ever alluded to someone's sexual orientation. But I thought Schieffer's question on homosexuality as a choice was startlingly good. Bush handled it well, Kerry bought into the pseudo-science. What kind of Catholic IS he? has he never heard of "free will"? Sanctity of life? The Magisterium? Typical cultural Catholic, like MoDo and Quindlan et al. He shouldn't even bring up his religion.

Schieffer was by far the worst of the four moderators. Having known him over the years, I thought he would have been the best. CBS must be brainwashing their employees. By the way, the reason Bob S cackled at Kerry's "marrying up" line was because it was his story also. All in all, a clear win for Bush, just as election night will be. Maybe all the "talking heads" will look at the electoral college map and realize how out of step the two coasts are from the rest of America.

My thought on the repeated mention of Cheney's daughter is that is a coded appeal to the black vote, given that they are one of the groups most opposed to gay marriage - it reminds them that there is a gay person on the Republican side and distracts attention from the support for gay marriage among almost all of the non-black Democrat base.

It is still contemptible for Edwards and kerry to have done it.

Good point max, I know there has to be a political motivation in there somewhere.

And I don't think it was a good move to bring up your mother in a question about your wife and daughters, and while he probably does love them, it didn't show in his eyes the same way it showed in Bush's.

I really don't know what these people being polled were watching, when they said Kerry won the debate, they are insane, or they actually spent too much time watching baseball, and just said they watched the whole debate.

Why are all the comments from the left, almost without fail, so hostile and filled with vulgarity. I'm no princess but have you people no class? or shame?

Hey, I'm from the left, and I try not to be hostile or vulgar. Anyway, I don't think the Cheney thing was to get the black vote, since a) there are more important issues to most African-Americans, and b) Kerry doesn't support gay marriage anyway. I think it is a ploy to turn off homophobic people on the right by reminding them their VP is related to "one of them". This has its problems, of course. It assumes there are more homophobic people on the right than the left, and I don't know if that's true, and that it actually matters to them that the VP's daughter is gay.

Of course, this also assumes that right-wing homophobes (small though that portion of the population may be), would ever vote for a Mass. liberal in the first place. I doubt it. So, on second thought, it makes no sense at all. Why do they keep mentioning it?

beth,

"Why are all the comments from the left, almost without fail, so hostile and filled with vulgarity. I'm no princess but have you people no class? or shame?"

If you were talking about this thread, could you tell me which comments on here you found hostile, vulgar, lacking class or worthy of shame?

I stumbled onto this blog only recently (less than two weeks ago, I think), and have found the host and most posters here (from both sides of the aisle) far more civil than one would find on many, many other politically oriented blogs.

I would be inclined to agree with Clancy.

Just Me,

I did watch the entire debate and am not insane. I think it was fairly even and both candidates scored some good points.

What Kerry needed to do was to define himself to the undecided voter as a plausible alternative to the current president. From what we know so far, he has succeeded in this.

What Bush needed to do was to turn the trend around, since the trend has been heading in Kerry's direction. From our information to date, he has not succeeded in this.

Conclusion? Both did fairly well, but in effect it was a slim win for Kerry. You don't have to be insane to think that.

I think it's just inconceivable to Just Me that other people may see things differently than him and still be sane.

I was among the 30-35,000 people who watched the debate at the Bank One Ballpark (the BOB) in Phoenix last night on the big screen in center field.

I was extremely disappointed that all the media seem to ignore the size of the crowd and only included 'tight' shots of the President coming out of the dugout to a deafening roar. The only time the BOB has been noisier was when Gonzo hit that soft fly ball off of Rivera to win the best World Series in history for the D-Backs.

It was an incredible evening. I think that the vote among those in attendance was 34,323 to 0 that the President won the debate.

I wrote a defeatjohnjohn.com article today on this; I'm a pro-gay-marriage atheist who was still won over by Bush last night, even on the issues we disagreed on, because he seems genuine, thoughtful and fair in a way Kerry simply isn't.

Zach,

"And I thought it was funny how Kerry kept going back to previous questions, and not answering the ones that were in front of him."

Kerry did evade some questions or segue quickly to topics he was more eager to talk about (as did Bush), but when Kerry did shoehorn rebuttals to previous points into his answers, he invariably went on to then deal with the question at hand.

It has nothing to do with nuance necessarily – he just didn't want to correct some things that had been said. Even so, he was able to fit everything he wanted to say into his time limit.

Will Rogers,

"John Kerry made a very large mistake by bringing Dick Cheney's daughter into the fray. She has stayed out of sight by her own chosing."

She was on the stage after the vice-presidential debates with her partner.

"This is the first time I can ever remember something this heinous occuring during a debate or campaign."

Heinous? Neither Kerry nor Edwards said a single disrespectful thing about Cheney's daughter.

People forget that Mary Cheney is hardly being 'outed' here. She is and has been active in roles that revolve around her sexual orientation.

So what's the problem? Why the outrage?

Edwards: "Now, as to this question, let me say first that I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful thing. And there are millions of parents like that who love their children, who want their children to be happy."

Kerry: "We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice."

This is supposed to be 'heinous'?

"he just didn't want to correct some things that had been said" should have been "he just wanted to correct some things that had been said".

Clancy,
Though what John Kerry did was not Heinous, it was wrong. Explain to me how John Kerry ahs any Idea Whatsoever of what Mary would say to that questions. If his comment was not a "low blow" then what was it? Please tell me 1 positive thing that can come out of it for Kerry by saying such a thing. It was there to throw a wrench into Bush's rythym that he had going.

The only thing it did for Kerry, was piss a lot of people off. That comment had about the same relavence as if Bush were to answer the question about health care, "I think Mrs. Edwards would aggree that obesity is a large problem..."

Steve-O,

I guess your reaction to the comment depends on whether you view homosexuality as something you should be ashamed of.

"Explain to me how John Kerry ahs any Idea Whatsoever of what Mary would say to that questions."

Kerry clearly indicated he was speculating ("I think if you were to ask..."), so what's to explain? He didn't state a certainty.

" If his comment was not a "low blow" then what was it?"

Not low, maybe a blow – if you happen to think that the sexual preference of an openly gay person must be swept under the rug. It was pertinent to the question asked and served to put it in a more human, rather than abstract, context.

Again, Mary Cheney has been openly gay for years and worked for openly gay organizations.

Has anyone asked Mary Cheney what she thinks of this? So far I hear she has refused to comment. My guess is that she is torn between supporting her father (she works for his campaign) and her probably agreeing with what Kerry said about homosexuality and choice. (That's my speculation.)

Incidentally, how outraged were Dick and Lynne Cheney back when Alan Keyes called her a "selfish hedonist"?

Apparently that's okay - just don't call her a lesbian. Especially not if you're a Democrat.

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