prog | Weak.

The official response to John Kerry's speech, as seen on GWB's website:

John Kerry's latest position on Iraq is to advocate retreat and defeat in the face of terror. This sends the wrong signal to our troops, our allies and our enemies. The American people understand the stakes and Prime Minister Allawi understands the need to defeat the terrorists trying to destroy the approach of freedom in the Middle East. President Bush has made it clear that we will complete this mission and has made it clear that the status quo is unacceptable in a region that can produce killers capable of flying planes into buildings.

Mhm. You did realize Kerry was talking about Iraq, right?

Actually, that just applies to the last sentence. The rest of it seems to respond to some other speech entirely, so I dunno what to say, other than damn, that's weak. (What, the Bush plan is to occupy Iraq forever? WTF?)

I can't wait for the debates; Bush has no response at all to Kerry's excellent new attack except to use the old responding-to-what-I-wish-you-had-actually-said trick. (Not to say that Kerry, nor every other media-savvy politician, hasn't done this too. But Bush is in so deep, he can do nothing but. To say nothing of his need to suffix all thoughts with "And also, TERRORISTS AND SCARY GHOST-PIRATES! BOO!") If Kerry can keep the heat on, Bush -- finally forced to speak in an environment the he lacks total control, to an audience not cheering his every word and heckling his opponent -- will look like a damned fool to all of Purple America.

I have been bothered by very believable visions of GWB managing to smirk his way out of the debates, citing the fact that he's too busy being president to bother with such needless timewasting while there's a war on.

(I could have said "except to hack at strawmen", but I have a bit of an aversion to the word, I think, seeing it tossed around so freely in Usenet/Webforums by people with no debating skills trying to invalidate every dissenting viewpoint. Strawmen: the new nazis!)

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I'm more worried that he'll smirk his way through the debates. I don't fear them not happening as much as I fear him overwhelming rational argument with attempted charisma.

The last sentence of the reply...well, it's true, Iraq is in a region that can produce killers capable of flying airplanes into buildings. He didn't quite say that the Middle East is the only such region. (As it happens, Florida is also such a region.) He also didn't say Iraq had produced such killers, only that it is in a region that did--and not even that, only that it's in a region that can.

Speaking as a semanticist, it's what I find most infuriating about political debate: statements that are, well, literally true, but with implications that are thoroughly false. (I watched much of the Republican National Convention, and I can state for certain that, having seen the way Laura and George interacted and the way that Dick and Lynne interacted, that I do not for a second believe that Dick Cheney abuses his wife. Implication? Was there an implication? I stated nothing negative about the Republicans; perhaps you misunderstood me.)

Here's the response I saw:

"Today my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind with new contradictions of old positions on Iraq," Bush said in Derry, New Hampshire.

Bush pointed out that last December, while battling anti-war candidate Howard Dean for the Democratic nomination, Kerry said anyone who did not believe removing Saddam Hussein from power had made Iraq safer did not have the credibility to be president.

"I could not have said it better," said Bush, who accused Kerry of sending mixed signals at a delicate time in Iraq's history.

This was back before new reports of Iraq's weapons capability came out, and Kerry was still buying the BS Bush was handing Congress and Senate officials as proof of what Bush wanted everyone to believe.

It says that Kerry may be too trusting of US government officials, but it hardly plays him as a flip-flopper on the war.

Maybe Kerry didn't want to allow himself to believe that Bush would be insane enough to start a war for no real reason? Still... Kerry should have known better...

It's been my opinion that those who support Bush, already forgive him for having nothing to back his claims or his principles. They tolerate his moronic stumbling because he supports 'one' issue that they feel more strongly about then the whole "keep the US and the world from falling apart" issue. Usually, it's gay marriage, abortion, or the fact that they hate liberals in the bigoted sense and/or fear that christianity is going to be banned from America for no reason. Others are just afraid and inattentive at the same time (the 's' factor).

So, I don't believe the debates will have an impact that will help Kerry. They only have the capability to harm Kerry if he slips up.

Weak.

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