Beldar's take on the third presidential debate
Okay, I've got to admit that I'm so negative on John Kerry that I can't engage in much nuanced discussion of this debate. The only thing I can say with lots of confidence is that at worst for Bush, this was a draw — and as with the prior debates, I think Kerry needed a Dubya screw-up to get a real surge.
Trying to put aside my biases and be objective, I think it was a Dubya win. My gosh, this man has grown in the presidency — and not just on foreign policy. It's not so much that he's more polished than he was in 2000, but that there's more confidence and depth. You may not agree with the decisions he's made and the priorities he's set, and you may hate him and his style. But the debates confirm in spades what ought to be implicit from his performance in office, but what's more clearly on view in a setting like this — that this man is indeed up to the job of being President. He's not a chimp; he's not a puppet of Karl Rove; he's not an accident of a Supreme Court vote. He is the President of the United States.
The debates show that Kerry is up to debating. I will certainly concede that the man talks a good game. But it's almost all beautiful soap bubbles, and I'm not confident that I know what's at his core. To the extent I think I know what's at his core, I dislike and distrust it. He's a conflicted, blurry man — the only consistent bright gleam I see in his eyes is one of personal ambition, and around the edges of even that brightness is condescension and arrogance. I do understand how my left-leaning friends can vote against Bush, for reasons of personality, policy, or both. But I genuinely have trouble understanding how anyone can be enthusiastic about John Kerry.
Take-away lines from the transcript, one from Dubya, and one from Kerry that Dubya & Co. will exploit: "A plan is not a litany of complaints." And "I think it makes sense, I think most Americans in their guts know, that we ought to pass a sort of truth standard." (Picture Chirac administering a lie detector test at the U.N., after he's graded the global test.)
CBS News should have just dropped any pretense of fairness and sent Dan Rather to moderate this damn thing. The questions couldn't have been much more slanted if Michael Moore had been the moderator.
An aside, purely speculating, regarding Kerry's joke near the end:
Well, I guess the president and you [referring to Bob Schieffer] and I are three examples of lucky people who married up. And some would say maybe me moreso than others. But I can take it.
In the next camera shot of Theresa, she looked like the furies of hell had swirled up inside her; she had the kind of grim smile a hungry tigress displays before she sinks a claw into a gazelle's liver. And fer pete's sake, besides saying she was "strong," which Shieffer's question practically required him to say, and the crack about her being rich, Kerry couldn't come up with another thing to say specifically about THK, but instead transitioned into the story about his mother's deathbed. As Roger L. Simon noted,
Why did Kerry's mother feel she had to remind him "Integrity! Integrity! Integrity!" from her hospital bed when he told her he was thinking of running for President? What did she know? My mother would have assumed I would have integrity in the same situation.
Looking at Kerry and THK together is like watching actors in an Edwardian stage play. Looking at Dubya and Laura, you think, "Wow, what a lucky man he is to have her, and what a fabulous woman she is to believe in him so deeply." I'm no psychologist, but my trial lawyer instincts, to the extent they operate in this weird context, tell me that a bunch of people who couldn't write three complete sentences on either candidate's domestic policies still came away from these debates with very strong impressions about their respective domestic households — and will only identify with, envy, or admire one of them.
Update (Wed Oct 13 @ 10:30pm): Dave Kopel has a take similar to mine on NRO's The Corner:
With all due respect to my esteemed webmistress KJL, Kerry's "marrying up" line was a disaster. For the voters who are deciding on character rather than issues (many of the undecided and uninformed voters), the line was a stark reminder that Bush is still married to the girl of his youth, through all the ups and downs of his alcoholism and career. Bush did not "marry up"; he married down for the woman he loved. Kerry, in contrast, married up for his first wife, dropped her, and then married up big-time for his arrogant billionairess second wife. Which guy would you trust for steady leadership? ... Game, set, and match to GWB.
I agree, with the exception that I'd modify Dave's line about Laura to read "Bush did not 'marry up' in social class or wealth." I suspect Dubya would be the first to agree that in terms of character and strength, he couldn't have made a better pick in the country than his blushing school librarian bride from Midland. |
