Prezzy Debate #1

Okay, short answer: Kerry won, no question, but he missed opportunities to really kick some butt.

Bush had a few good moments which probably heartened his supporters but overall, even Bill Kristol was saying that Kerry supporters should be happy. All of the Fox folk sounded like they were giving it to Kerry and that's saying something.

I mainly watched it on CNN, flipping to Fox a few times, and I saw that the "reaction shot" rule was soon broken. However, in watching the rebroadcast on C-SPAN, it was a continuous split screen shot of both of them. I should've been watching it there. Bush looked annoyed throughout the whole thing.

But Kerry missed a few opportunities to really stick it to Bush or, at least, to better defend himself. The main one was when his vote on the $87 billion came up. Kerry opted to respond with a sound bite saying he was wrong with how he spoke about the vote but Bush was wrong about the war. "Which is worse?" he asked rhetorically. I would have rather he explain that his first vote FOR the $87 was threatened with a veto by Bush because it called to tax Bush's rich friends to pay for the war in Iraq. Only when that tax was removed (guaranteeing our indebtedness) and Kerry was sure that the funding would pass anyway so that he could cast a protest vote did he vote against it. But instead, he went for the sound bite and hardly deflected the "First he voted for it and then he voted against it" charge.

For those already siding with Bush, his repeated catch-phrases may have sounded reassuring. But it started to wear on me. "Wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place” supposedly shows a lack of support for our troops. And what was with the repeated, "grand diversion" accussation? It's like those were the only cards W could play. Kerry, on the other hand, pulled out fact after fact. But I was surprised when I flipped over to NBC and saw their "Truth Squad" camp down on Kerry for his $200 billion for Iraq remark. In fact, while $200 billion has not yet been spent, it has been budgeted. All NBC did was cite that only $120 billion has been spent, not the budgeted amount. And this is supposed to be the liberal media of the alphabet networks?

You can read the transcript on the Washington Post site but you won't see the reactions. Bush really came off poorly, I thought, whereas Kerry's reactions were more along the lines of knowing what he wanted to say in response and noting the facts in preparation to spring on Bush. Unfortunately Kerry did not spring anything majorly stellar and neither did Bush fumble egregiously. Oh, Bush did fumble a bit and Kerry did do generally well, but nothing too extreme either way. Unfortunately I missed a lot of the pre-game buzz so I'm not sure who's expectations got lowered the most so I didn't know "the spread" that either player had to beat. I'm just going on my own perceptions absent of any hype (though, perhaps, tainted by my pro-Kerry bias).

What's your call?