Category: Politics

Some of the better morning-after commentary:

Josh Marshall:

What occured to me somewhat while I was watching the first time and even more on the second go through was just how long it’s been since President Bush had to face someone who disagrees with him or is criticizing.

Every president gets tucked away into a cocoon to some degree. But President Bush does notoriously few press conferences or serious interviews. His townhall meetings are screened so that only supporters show up. And, of course, he hasn’t debated anyone since almost exactly four years ago.

Frankly, I think it showed. It irked him to have to stand there and be criticized and not be able to repeat his talking points without contradiction.

Ezra from Pandagon:

Fact is, 9/11 didn’t change Bush, it just changed his rhetoric. And while the smirk now floated above terra-fightin’ and tyrant-smashin’, it was still the same smirk that had accompanied social security privatization and medicare reform. But while we all knew and understood that he had been a lightweight in the days of domestic policy — at least, we tittered, he hadn’t been an atrocious dullard like that Gore — we began pretending that something had snapped in George W. Bush and he was now a somber leader prepared to face down a time of grave danger.

But tonight the curtain lifted and Bush was back onstage with a competitor, without a teleprompter, and facing a barrage of unfamiliar and even unfriendly topics. But the way George debates — rigid adherence to message, down-home charisma, a quick grin and general geniality — was sadly unsuitable for the occasion. Past confrontations have been reasonably light, occurring in times of relative prosperity and in opposition to barely-liked incumbents whom the public liked seeing taken down a few pegs. But tonight, George was supposed to be serious, to be somber, to show himself the sort of timeless leader appropriate for such a crucial stage in history. Instead, he was like a glitchy boombox machine-gunning the phrase “mixed messages”. Where Kerry had calm presentation and logical progressions, George jumped from story to quote, personal attack to platitude (“I know how the world works”). Where he was supposed to run on a record, he instead ran on an ethic (“It’s hard work”). Where he was supposed to act dignified, he was draped over his podium. Where he was supposed to be the country’s commander, he was instead a mediocre candidate.

Matt Yglesias:

The main thing that lends debates — as opposed to normal speeches — some interest is that even when the candidates aren’t allowed to directly address one another, they still set up their charges in such a way as to clearly imply that the other guy ought to be responding to his opponents’ attacks. In that light, it’s worth highlighting one charge Kerry made several times that Bush never responded to directly — namely that the reason Osama bin Laden is at large threatening the United States rather than dead on the battlefield was the Bush administration’s decision to “outsource” the battle of Tora Bora.

I’ve never heard any of Bush’s allies offer a convincing defense of this decision, and it’s a critique Kerry’s been leveling on-and-off ever since the day it happened. Tonight, Bush didn’t even try. A tacit admission, perhaps, that Kerry was right. I think that means Kerry ought to press the assault forward and start bringing this up more often. Force the president to either admit he was wrong and puncture his self-cultivated mystique of infallibility or else offer some kind of defense. I don’t see what he could possibly have to say for himself.

Finally, I can’t find the quote now, but this is one other observation I saw that I found particularly apt — Bush’s loopy assertion that the simple act of saying “This is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time” (an observation the majority of Americans currently agree wtih, by the way) somehow rendered him unfit to be Commander In Chief. I can’t begin to understand the weird brain alchemy by which that is seen to be legitimate criticism of a candidate.

Does he seriously think that unless you are always right, always positive, you can’t be in charge? That actually might explain Bush’s inability to admit to a mistake.

Anyway, kitten blogging to follow.

I tried to take some notes during the debate but my friends have 3 kids under 5, so we had frequent distracions. Still, I saw enough.

Obviously Kerry ‘won’. Bush stared out OK but as the evening wore on he floundered more and more, seemed to run out of new material, looked flustered, and generally did not seem on top of things anymore.

A few bits that jumped out at me:

Kerry — “He outsourced that job too” — referring to how the US did not catch Osama Bin Laden. Also — “You can have my plan in four points, which I can tell you about here or you can go to johnkerry.com and read about it. Or you can have the president’s plan, which is four words: ‘More of the same.'”

Bush — “What kind of message does it send to our troops to tell them ‘wrong war, wrong time?'” He said it several times. He seemed to be saying it is better to lie to our troops than to tell them that Iraq is a mess.

I thought Jim Lehrer did a very good job moderating, and except for one lame softball on character issues, asked good questions. I hope the other moderators are as good.

Time to go read the spin.

I’ll be at a friend’s house for the debate, so will not be liveblogging or offering immediate post-debate comment. There’s plenty of bloggers who will be doing that with or without me, so no great loss. I will post some comments once I get home though.

It was bad enough that it was just a proposal, but now it’s looking more likely that the US is going to go forward with the godawful plan of sending people to other countries to be tortured so we don’t have to dirty our hands with it.

The Bush administration is supporting a provision in the House leadership’s intelligence reform bill that would allow U.S. authorities to deport certain foreigners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused, an action prohibited by the international laws against torture the United States signed 20 years ago.

The provision, part of the massive bill introduced Friday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would apply to non-U.S. citizens who are suspected of having links to terrorist organizations but have not been tried on or convicted of any charges. Democrats tried to strike the provision in a daylong House Judiciary Committee meeting, but it survived on a party-line vote.

The provision, human rights advocates said, contradicts pledges President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal erupted this spring that the United States would stand behind the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the Justice Department “really wants and supports” the provision.

And don’t bring up that “known terrorist clock is ticking” freshman philosophy class canard, please. This isn’t about that. This is broad permission to ship off anyone we want — provided s/he is not a US citizen — to some other country for torture.

It’s wrong. No two ways around it.

A vote for Bush says that you think torturing possibly innocent people is a good idea.

At one time I would have been spitting outrage and venom. Right now I’m mostly numb, but know I have to move, to say something, to get the word out there. This is too important.

The Republican leadership of Congress is attempting to legalize extraordinary rendition. “Extraordinary rendition” is the euphemism we use for sending terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture for interrogation. As one intelligence official described it in the Washington Post, “We don’t kick the sh*t out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the sh*t out of them.

Digby, as he so often does, hits the nail on the head with a long piece about Bush v Gore 2000 and the likelihood of something similar happening in 2004. I agree with him that if the election is at all close then a raft of lawsuits will follow.

In 2000, the concept of waking up the morning after election day and not knowing who was elected was new and in a way a little exciting. It was uncharted waters, and back then, we didn’t know how much the fix was in. Call it naive, call it willful blindness, call it an inability to accept that the other guy is less honorable than you are — all true. We went to a rumble without a knife, and the whole world is paying for it.

Like Atrios, I can’t quite bring myself to this point, but I can’t say Digby’s totally wrong either:

Foolishly, Gore thought that being modest and fair still meant something. He was not prepared for a streetfight. And, looking back I realize that I wasn’t either. Like a green youth I didn’t believe they’d actually go that far. Even after the impeachment sideshow, an event that solidified my belief in the lethal, fascistic nature of the modern Republican party, I was not fully prepared for the no holds barred approach they would take in this situation.

It is what led me to the point at which I am able to say without any sense of restraint or caution that I would put NOTHING past them — even a staged terrorist attack. This is because every time I think they have some limits, they prove me wrong. As the old saying goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…won’t get fooled again….

No, I do not believe they would stage a terrorist attack. But when it comes to internal domestic matters, especially ones pertaining to winning elections, yeah, there’s not much they wouldn’t do or try to do. We just have to find a way to keep them from doing it again. Hopefully while still holding on to what makes us better than them.