Good coverage of the debate over at derelection2004, but I think that the post-debate interview with Karl Rove by the New York Post's Vince Morris:
Vince Morris: So, would you say this is the worst debate of
President Bush's life?
Karl Rove: No, but I would say it's one of John Kerry's worst.
Vince Morris: Really? You can say that with a straight face?
Honestly, what a strange debate. Bush basically took all of his talking points — those expressions you've heard him use over and over — and just kept repeating them in apparently random order, rarely answering the question in anything but the vaguest sense. While I understand that lifelong Republicans have some kind of deluded concept “honor” or “patriotism” that makes them feel traitorous considering Kerry, at this point you'd really have to be pretty dimwitted to stick with Bush…
Come on — arguing that the Iraq war was the right thing to do because it disarmed Saddam, when the final outcome showed that there never were weapons in the first place is a truly glorious piece of double-think. How stupid does Bush think Americans are? Do people really buy it when Guilliani does damage control afterwards, saying, “Saddam was the WMD!”?
Cop: Mr. Larratt, why did you shoot that guy?
Shannon: He had a gun and he was going to shoot me!
Cop: Oh, well that's self-defense then.
Shannon: I know!
Cop: Wait... he doesn't have a gun.
Shannon: I disarmed him.
Cop: But you don't have his gun; just your own...
...and his isn't here anywhere.
Shannon: Thank God I disarmed him, or it would be.
Cop: There was no gun, was there?
Shannon: He WAS a gun! I mean, look at him!
Cop: You really aren't backing down on this, are you?
Shannon: God Bless Shannon.
God I need an interrobang right now.
And I don't buy this “we can't say anything bad about the war, because it'll make the troops sad” lie either. Anyone here with military family or that even reads Army Times knows that the troops are aware that this was a mistake and that it's really screwed up. It's not some secret we can keep from them — they're there on the ground, and know better than anyone what a mistake it was. They also know that the reason that over a thousand Americans have been sent home in body bags and almost 20,000 have been sent home on stretchers, isn't because of “terrorists” or “foreign fighters” — it's because regular civilian Iraqis, now insurgents, don't want Americans there.
I ask those of you reading this: have you ever made a mistake?
When you make a mistake, do you learn from it, clean up the mess, and try not to repeat the mistake? Or do you put on your game face, and keep repeating the mistake over and over and over so know you appear That's the decision Americans have to make right now.
stupid and self-destructive “consistent and strong”? If you recognize that America is moving in the wrong direction, is it best to “stay the course”, or is it best to “flip flop”?
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