PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE NUMBER TWO

Once again, John Kerry effectively addressed his grievances with the way the Bush administration has handled Iraq, and Kerry was also able to address his differences with Bush on domestic policy. I thought GW handled himself much better in this debate than in the first one. The scowl was certainly turned down, but the rhetoric continued to be repetitive and tired. (He really likes that "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" quote!)

I think it was more difficult to ascertain a decisive victor in this debate than it was in the first one. Kerry dominated Bush in the first one; I think the battle was a bit more even this time around. I was informed this week that it is very easy for Kerry to just pick the things that he thinks Bush has done wrong and to say, "I can do it better" without actually having to prove that. The argument is that any incumbent has a record that can be picked apart without any evidence on the challenger's part that he/she has a better plan. I would argue in this instance that Kerry has laid out specific plans to achieve policies in which Bush has failed, while pointing out grievous errors that the Bush administration fails to acknowledge.

Even some of Bush's key personnel (namely General Eric Shinseki and more recently L. Paul Bremer, former head of the U.S. occupational authority) have said that the U.S. went into Iraq with too few boots on the ground to achieve a successful peace. Kerry's argument continues to be that the Bush administration spent sufficient energy on the plan to win the war, but failed to put the same effort into the plan to win the peace. The experts in the State Department who have repeatedly been tasked with nation-building in the sixty years since the end of WW2 were largely ignored and asked to remain silent on the issue of rebuilding Iraq. Those plans were left up to the Dept of Defense who completely failed in that regard. The State Dept was not asked to offer assistance and advice until the middle of this past summer, some 15 months after the initial invasion, and some 14 months after Bush's declaration that 'major combat operations' were over.

As much as the Republican campaign attempts to paint Kerry as a 'flip-flopper', it becomes more and more obvious to more and more people that those words are just more tired rhetoric and cheap 'trash talk' from the Bush/Cheney campaign. The sooner that people realize the significance of this election, the better off this country will be.

WAKE UP!