Intial Presidential Debate #2 Reax

1. I think Bush takes this one, hands-down. He was (for the most part) lucid, he largely avoided over-repeating catchphrases, he was warm and personable with the crowd and even managed to elicit a few laughs from them.
2. He did much, much better on the “domestic” side of the debate than I even thought possible. I thought his defense of the administration’s environmental policies was just about the best I’ve ever even seen attempted in a public forum.
3. I didn’t get Kerry’s Red Sox “joke”. Anyone care to fill me in?
4. How can I possibly regard Kerry as a credible voice on homeland security when he doesn’t even remember when the WTC was bombed for the first time?
5. If the Bush campaign is wise, they will hammer (hammer, I say!) two statements by Kerry: 1) the “Not necessarily” response to whether Saddam would still be in power under a Kerry admin and 2) Kerry will appoint judges that “interpret the Constitution according to the law”, which is a total and utter inversion of the way our country and judicial system were designed and should work. And this from a self-proclaimed lawyer! I think it says a lot about Kerry’s true feelings on judicial activism and confirms, for me, the type of judicial appointments we would get from him.
6. “Internets” and “factcheck.com” are going to drive me batty, regardless of who ends up winning this race.
7. Although, technically, Bush could have been speaking to a certain subselection of college students who have access to the Internet II, thus allowing them to use multiple “internets” to check their facts.
   Or is someone high up in the structure of things finally recognizing the existence of, and need for, IPv6? *grin*
8. This debate gives me great hope for Debate #3, as I thought that a domestic policy debate would be an absolute massacre for Kerry. Now, I’m not so sure. I think that the Pres. can probably hold his own, as long as he gets some fair questions from Schieffer.

Overall, I thought it was a good performance for Bush and a subpar one for Kerry. It’ll be interesting to see what my liberal coworkers thought of it come Monday.