Greg Ransom
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UPDATE: PoliPundit has already called it .. not only the debate but the 2004 election.
Read the debate transcript here. The President won the debate in the first round with this forceful series:
Two days ago in the Oval Office I met with the finance minister from Iraq. He came to see me. And he talked about how optimistic he was and the country was about heading toward elections. Think about it. They're going from tyranny to elections.Kerry was utterly relentless. On the attack on every front in the most forceful manner possible. At some point this began to work against Kerry. He seems like a relentless -- and soulless -- killing machine, like a Mike Tyson or a shark. And at some point this no longer impressed -- what it began to do is suck all sense of sincerity out of Kerry's incessant attacking. The pile upon pile of double-barrelled attacking seems to have no other theme or depth than personal victory itself. Not a passion for the victory of America, not a passion for the victory of the people in the audience. A passion for the personal victory -- rhetorical, political, moral -- in this particular debate for John Kerry. And this is not the impression you want to leave with America. It was as if John Kerry were a defense attorney with no real care for the fate of his client, but who wanted to win on some legal side issue or who wanted to crush some witness for the sake merely of his own personal victory -- a transitory victory for the attorney which well could cost the client his liberty. The President tonight assured America that he does forcefully and sincerely care about America and its security. John Kerry did not.He talked about the reconstruction efforts that are beginning to take hold. He talked about the fact that Iraqis love to be free. He said he was optimistic when he came here, then he turned on the TV and listened to the political rhetoric, and all of a sudden he was pessimistic. This is a guy who, along with others, has taken great risks for freedom. And we need to stand with him.
My opponent says he has a plan. It sounds familiar because it's called the Bush plan. We're going to train troops, and we are. We'll have 125,000 trained by the end of December. We're spending about $7 billion. He talks about a grand idea; let's have a summit; we're going to solve the problem in Iraq by holding a summit. And what is he going to say to those people that show up to the summit? Join me in the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place? Risk your -- risk your troops in a -- in a war you've called a mistake?
Nobody is going to follow somebody who doesn't believe we can succeed and somebody who says the war where we are is a mistake. I know how these people think. I meet with them all the time. I talk to Tony Blair all the time. I talk to Silvio Berlusconi. They're not going to follow an American president who says "follow me into a mistake."
Our plan is working. We're going to make elections, and Iraq is going to be free, and America will be better off for it.
UPDATE II: Here's Allah's blogosphere debate roundup.
This question shouldn't have been a hard one for the President:
President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision and what you did to correct it.Correct answer: Yes I have made three mistakes as President -- and they were all named Paul O'Neill. Solution? I fired his ass.
But the President couldn't say that, could he?
This is the sort of question that Bill Clinton excelled at with zero pretence of credibility for those with any firm hold on the real world. Of course he did make the soft headed ones swoon. The President tonight did not.
UPDATE III: John Kerry, a man with a plan. See also this.
Posted by Greg Ransom
