Furious George

[ZombieNixon]

Here's the column I wrote in my local paper (the Farmington Daily Times-Farmington, NM) about the debates, utilizing the ever-useful "Furious George." This is a very conservative town, so no doubt I'll be getting a lot of hate mail, but you guys would probably appreciate it.

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FURIOUS GEORGE: THE DEBATES IN REVIEW
The last of the presidential debates took place this past week. The media trumpeted them as John Kerry’s last chance to improve his standing in the polls. Let’s have a look at what happened.
The first debate focused exclusively on foreign policy, supposedly President Bush’s strongest point. We all expected it to be a lively and enlightening debate. Instead, it turned into a verbal rout by Kerry, and I almost felt sorry for President Bush. For a discussion on his strongest talking points, Bush seemed very ill prepared. Perhaps Karl Rove and Co. thought that Kerry would be unable to articulate a coherent vision for American foreign policy over the next four years. Instead, Kerry threw Bush off balance from the very beginning. Kerry looked like a fatherly statesman and to Bush’s petulant child, stuttering and fumbling over his words. Tellingly, he confused Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and when Kerry pointed out that we were attacked by Bin Laden, not Hussein, Bush felt it was necessary to save face by saying “I know that.” His rebuttal to the bad news out of Iraq was “It’s hard work.” A few minutes into the debate, maybe he realized he wasn’t doing so well, because his demeanor similarly deteriorated. A glance at the TV screen revealed President Bush’s strong aversion to criticism. Every time Kerry was talking, Bush appeared frustrated, rolled his eyes, scowled, frowned and grimaced. By the time the debate was over, the image of “Furious George” had been born. No matter how hard the media tried to spin it as a draw, the polls said otherwise. Bush blew an apparent eight-point lead in an hour and a half.
The following Tuesday, John Edwards and Dick Cheney met in Cleveland to duke it out. Because Cheney is quite an adept, though gloomy, speaker, this one was actually a debate instead of a one-sided disassembly of the incumbent’s record. Cheney put the “vice” back in “vice president” with his defense of Halliburton, and then proceeded to attack John Edwards for having a bad Senate attendance record. In fact, Edwards has had over an 80 percent record of attendance during his term in the Senate. If Cheney never met Edwards, it was because Cheney was in his undisclosed location instead of the Senate. In the last four years, Cheney has presided over the Senate a grand total of two times, the same number of times John Edwards has had to fill in for him. Photos actually show Cheney and Edwards side by side at the inauguration of Elizabeth Dole and at a breakfast in early 2001. So Cheney lied, but what’s new about that?
The second presidential debate was held in a “town hall” format, in which the candidates fielded questions from an audience of uncommitted voters. It also drove home the point that there are no stupid questions, just stupid answers. Given Bush’s sour performance in the first encounter, it seemed there was nowhere to go but up. Just to be fair, I do think that Senator Kerry’s response to the question about abortion seemed weak, but after seeing the questioner gazing at the president like a kid with a crush at a rock star, I expect that nothing Kerry could have said would have made her happy. Bush, on the other hand, charged at Charlie Gibson like a bull and shouted at the audience. My guess is he thought a flamboyant display of what he thought was “manliness” would attract more “security moms.” The final question felled Bush once more. When asked to list three mistakes he had made, Bush mumbled something about appointments, but failed to give specifics.
The third debate focused exclusively on domestic issues, and how President Bush’s legacy is to be the first Chief Executive to have gay marriages (which he tried to stop) exceed net job creation (which he tried to further). It was Winston Churchill versus Alfred E. Newman (of MAD Magazine fame). Furious George became, to paraphrase a Lewis Carrol quote, furiouser and furiouser. We learned from this debate that in Bush English, “jobs” means “education.” He just couldn’t talk about jobs. Every time the subject was brought up, he segued into his education policy. It seems that No Child Left Behind is Bush’s only domestic initiative. That and tax cuts. Other notable moments included when Bush claimed to have “increased Pell Grants by one million students,” a statement which Kerry quickly countered by (rightly) saying that under the president’s policies, one million more students qualify for Pell Grants (because their families’ incomes are dropping) and are being covered using the same amount of money (because the funding level has not increased). Near the end, Bush stated that his faith is “very personal,” which of course explains why he has to shove it down everyone else’s throats. Question-wise, however, the last debate was by far the weakest. Instead of devoting time to stem-cell research and the environment, the candidates were asked questions about faith and their wives. We have a president with the worst environmental record in history, and you ask about his wife?! Shame on you, Bob Schieffer.
Over the course of the past weeks we learned that there are three faces of George W. Bush. There’s the scripted Bush, who appears at campaign stops. There’s Shiny, Happy Bush, who tells bad jokes and asks people if they need wood (look at the transcript to the second debate). And finally, there’s Furious George, who clawed his way out of the suit at the first debate and who charged the moderator in Missouri. Hopefully, after January 20, we won’t have to see any of these faces again.

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You can also link to it by going to www.daily-times.com and clicking on "Columns." After today (Monday), they should keep it in archives for about a week.

[grannylib]

1. Great letter! Well done!

[MatrixEscape]

2. Very good.

I hope for your safety ;)