The Presidential Debate
 

It's about to start in a couple of minutes.

Discuss.

Through the miracles of modern technology I'm watching it here in Australia :)

Let's see here ... my son has to do his 15-minutes-of-reading homework in a few minutes & then I suspect I'll probably go to bed at the same time he does tonight, since we're off to WDW for vacation starting tomorrow afternoon & that's a pretty tiring week by the time we're done, I figure I better get some sleep while I can.

But we'll be reading Duck For President, so that oughta count for something.

what happened to the "not speaking, not on camera" rule? Bush was just on camera as Kerry was talking...

Chubby, the networks didn't agree to that rule.

Of course the first thing he says is about September 11th. How many speeches has he not started off with something like that?

Ahh, that's why.

Bush not answering the question. Exxxxxxxxxxcellent.

Did you know that 10 million citizens of Afganistan have registered to vote? Too bad it still has nothing to do with the "Will the election of Kerry lead to another terrorist attack" question.

Kerry WILL kill the terrorists. LOL that sounded bad.

Yeah, that wasn't good but I like him hammering on how we have put Osama and Afghanistan on the back burner for Iraq.

Kerry walked right into that one.

I think Kerry has already mentioned Osama Bin Laden more in this debate than he was mentioned in the whole Republican convention.

pre-september 10th?

It was pretty funny to see W. all of a sudden talk as fast as he can as soon as he saw the red light on.

we're facing a............a...................group of folks :D

"of course we're after Saddam Hussein... uh Osama Bin Laden"

nice :D

well to be fair Kerry made the same mistake a few minutes before

Can someone else provide the commentary? Chubby sucks.

ROFLMBAO!!!!! Kerry's slamming Bush for the troops not having enough body armor. Here we gooooo......

Bush - Kerry is a flipflopper. We should only say hearts and flowers statements to our troops and allies we don't have.

So Kerry is saying we need more troops and more spending in Iraq?

Anyone know exactly what these two are writing down on their little notepads?

Well, yeah.

He's saying the money we have spent should have been spent more wisely I believe.

You are getting Chubby's liberal twist on everything.

I heard him say we did not have enough troops in Iraq.

Someone's got to off-set the vast conservative twist on this board :p

So far I think Kerry is doing a good job of doing to Bush what Bush did to Dore during their debates. He keeps focusing on how we went after Saddam before we got Osama. And I give credit to Bush, because he used a word I didn't know the meaning to. :)

he said there wasn't enough troops in afghanistan and too many in Iraq.

"Stay on the offense"????????? uuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhh. I think that right there is a reason why some people won't vote for him. Bad choice of words IMO.

Kerry is clearly a better 'thinking on his feet' speaker. Bush has stumbled a few times.

Are you sure about that? I'd have to see the transcripts to be 100% certain, but I sure thought he was talking about under-funded troops in Iraq.

That's accurate.

Bush looks pissed off :)

I like the slam "he outsourced that job too"


So far, its Kerry up a by a touchdown.

lol

Bush seems to be getting a bit aggressive.

FWIW, I thought he was talking about Afghanistan.

Lehrer: "...when will troops come home?"
Bush: "Let me... uh... let me... uh..." (Let me not answer this question)

Yeah that seemed pretty horrible to me, too.

How I took it is that he said troops were diverted to Iraq when they were needed in Afghanistan. The whole "body armor" thing was more about money not being spent wisely than needing more money (also about not being prepared) but I think it's very open to interpretation.

How many times has Bush mentioned that he has "good folks working hard" for us?

Not taking political slants into account, I think Kerry had an advantage coming in, in that he is a better speaker on his feet as cthomer pointed out. It has nothing to do with what they speak about but in their delivery.

I think both are trying too hard to land that one-liner that the news will repeatedly play.

Kerry gets a laugh about changing the rules while Bush goes on about Kerry talking negative about the war.

Yeah Sabotai both are using that rebuttal period to land those sound-bite jabs. We'll see how that works out.

Most definitely.

The one liner has proved very profitable in previous debates so you can't blame either for trying.

This is a battle of philosophies, ultimately.

Point to Bush for the Blair comment but Poland???? lol

Everything is Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. That is all Kerry has on Bush. Bush is doing a pretty good job of turning it around on him.