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Batting 0 For 2

What an amazing world we live in. iTunes has both the first presidential debate and the vice-presidential debate posted as free downloads. Wow. You don't even need to tape this stuff anymore. You can just download the free mp3's. Wow again.

While we wait for audio from the second debate to get posted, transcripts are already online. Here's what really caught my attention.

Both Bush and Kerry argued passionately this time - meaning that Bush appeared to have a clue this time - but Kerry had lots of facts on his side whereas Bush had mostly opinion.

Here are a few of the Kerry gems, for which Bush largely had no answer or comment.

• "King Abdullah of Jordan said just yesterday or the day before you can't hold elections in Iraq with the chaos that's going on today."
  
• "Sen. Richard Lugar, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that the handling of the reconstruction aid in Iraq by this administration has been incompetent."
  
• "Sen. Hagel of Nebraska said that the handling of Iraq is beyond pitiful, beyond embarrassing; it's in the zone of dangerous."
  
• On the beginning of the war in Iraq: "We didn't have enough forces. Gen. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, told him he was going to need several hundred thousand. And guess what? They retired Gen. Shinseki for telling him that. This president hasn't listened."
  
• On N. Korea: "For two years, the president didn't even engage with North Korea, did nothing at all, while it was growing more dangerous, despite the warnings of former Secretary of Defense William Perry, who negotiated getting television cameras and inspectors into that reactor. We were safer before President Bush came to office. Now they have the bombs and we're less safe."
  
• "I am very proud in this race to have the support of Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm. William Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Tony McPeak, who ran the air war for the president's father and did a brilliant job, supporting me; Gen. Wes Clark, who won the war in Kosovo, supporting me; because they all -- and Gen. Baca, who was the head of the National Guard, supporting me. Why? Because they understand that our military is overextended under the president."
  
• "Mr. President, countries are leaving the coalition, not joining. Eight countries have left it."
  
• "If Missouri, just given the number of people from Missouri who are in the military over there today, were a country, it would be the third largest country in the coalition, behind Great Britain and the United States. That's not a grand coalition."
  
• "Ninety percent of the casualties are American. Ninety percent of the costs are coming out of your pockets. I could do a better job. My plan does a better job. And that's why I'll be a better commander in chief."
  
• "He chose a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans over getting that equipment out into the homeland as fast as possible. We have bridges and tunnels that aren't being secured, chemical plants, nuclear plants that aren't secured, hospitals that are overcrowded with their emergency rooms. If we had a disaster today, could they handle it? This president chose a tax cut over homeland security. Wrong choice."
  
• On medicare: "Actually, Mr. President, in 1997 we fixed Medicare, and I was one of the people involved in it. We not only fixed Medicare and took it way out into the future, we did something that you don't know how to do: We balanced the budget. And we paid down the debt of our nation for two years in a row, and we created 23 million new jobs at the same time. And it's the president's fiscal policies that have driven up the biggest deficits in American history. He's added more debt to the debt of the United States in four years than all the way from George Washington to Ronald Reagan put together. Go figure."
  
• "...'compassionate conservative,' what does that mean? Cutting 500,000 kids from after-school programs, cutting 365,000 kids from health care, running up the biggest deficits in American history. Mr. President, you're batting 0 for 2."
  
• "One percent of America, the highest 1 percent of income earners in America, got $89 billion of tax cut last year. One percent of America got more than the 80 percent of America that earned from $100,000 down."
  
• "After 9/11, after the recession had ended, the president asked for another tax cut and promised 5.6 million jobs would be created. He lost 1.6 million, ladies and gentlemen. And most of that tax cut went to the wealthiest people in the country."

And those were just from the first half of the debate...

Both men argued passionately - but the facts were on Kerry's side.

Here's my favorite Bush quote of the night. I literally laughed out loud:

"I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft."

On the internets? There's more than one? Well shit! How do I access the others? I think I've seen all of this one already... time to move on dot org :)

::::: | Filed under: politics
::::: | Posted Saturday, Oct 09 2004 at 1:23 AM
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