Final ramblings about the debate

After the debate last night, my wife said, "I sort of feel sorry for Bush." I said, "Don't feel sorry for him until November 3rd."

My wife said she felt that at the end of the debate, after Bush had calmed the almost manic disposition he had displayed all night, he finally came across as at ease and likable. His sense of humor is self-deprecating, which makes it hard to blame him for faults he clearly recognizes and tries to make light of.

Kerry was his calm, "funereal" self (to use Oliver Stone's word for Kerry). His acknowledgement of how well Bush handled events immediately following 9/11 was an unexpected bit of graciousness. The favor was not returned, that I noticed. Throughout the day, the Insta-polls I've seen and the post-debate analysis I've read indicate that Kerry probably did the better job. I felt that Kerry had won soon after the debate was over. I don't know how Republicans are feeling about it in their heart of hearts, but it must be a little disappointing that Bush never scored the knock out punch.

At least one Bush supporter, a Libertarian radio talk show host Neal Boortz, has declared Kerry the winner. If you aren't too repulsed by AM radio rhetoric, check out it out at Why I think that John Kerry
won the debate. Of course, Boortz awards this victory to Kerry with a good backhand slap, declaring that a majority of the American people are lazy and expect Government to step in and take over every aspect of their worthless lives, and this is exactly the kind of voter Kerry appealed to last night. That is why Kerry won, in Boortz's opinion. I don't know the extent to which Boortz is a reflection of
the rest of the conservative punditry, but I found it interesting that while other Bush folks are putting on a happy face, Boortz seems pessimistic.

Like Al Gore in 2000, in these three debates Bush has displayed three distinct personalities, each time trying to compensate for the last faltering performance. The only ones who can walk away from these debates fully satisfied that George Bush did a good job are the die-hard partisans. Bush threw them some red meat last night with his wisecracks about Ted Kennedy being the conservative Senator from
Massachusetts and how Kerry resides on the "left bank" of the mainstream, a comment that confused me at first because I misheard it and thought he said "West Bank."

These jokes fell flat with me, as did Kerry's reference to the Sopranos. The jokes were thought up in advance, and they did not work.

On the subject of Kerry's mention of Dick Cheney's daughter, I tend to agree with Andrew Sullivan, who says " The only way you can believe that citing Mary Cheney amounts to "victimization" is if you believe someone's sexual orientation is something shameful." Besides, this story has led to far too many journalists titling their pieces, "There's something about Mary." Kinda reminds me of a few weeks back,
during the battle for Samara, when it seemed like every journalist simultaneously rediscovered John O'Hara's forgotten novel Appointment in Samarra. Do you think any of them had read it? Maybe if they had, they would have realized it was set in America, and had nothing to do with Iraq.

Salon is trying to keep the "Bush's Bulge" story going a little while longer with this picture. Every time I read a story with the title "Bush's Bulge," I think, "What, did he have an erection during the debate and I missed it? What?" Byron York has reported in an article titled Media Miscues Seem Bulging With Left-Wing Bias that the originator of the story at
Salon, a fellow named Lindorff, is a long-time Bush hater who has
frequently made comparisons between W. and Adolf Hitler.

And while we're dabbling in pseudo-science and conspiracy theory, Washington University has published an article on its website (The eyes have it) in which one of its professors of psychology, John Stern, is quoted as saying

In the first presidential debate in Miami on Sept. 30, President Bush, in addition to exhibiting well documented physical mannerisms such as grimacing, frowning, smirking, and pursing his lips, also rapidly blinked throughout the debate.

Why is blinking important? Because, according to Stern, "there is solid evidence that people blink frequently at points in time when they momentarily stop taking in and processing information." People also blink more rapidly at moments when they are more apprehensive. President Bush sure did blink a lot last night, didn't he? Stern at least admits his bias, saying that he is a supporter of Kerry.

I wonder if there has ever been a President whose blinks, the spittle in the corner of his mouth, his facial expressions and other mannerisms, have been subjected to as much scrutiny as George W. Bush? I rather feel sorry for Bush, too.