Watch the debate NOW

[fedupinBushcountry]

http://wbztv.com/video/?id=[e-mail]

Edit: Well I thought you could, according to what it says here. http://wbztv.com/

Sorry.

[whometense]

1. Just saw most of it.

I missed the first 7 minutes or so.

First thought - I wonder why EOR was so anxious to stand on a stage next to JK. If I was him I would have insisted on radio debates only.

Superficial, I know, but just sayin'...

[fedupinBushcountry]

2. You might want to comment

http://pod08.prospero.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?webtag=WBZ_Keller">here

[Luftmensch067]

4. And vote in the poll at right! n/t

[fedupinBushcountry]

6. I voted

but it looks like O'Reilly has called out his gophers to hit the poll.

[MBS]

8. thanks for heads-up . I'd missed that n/t

[MBS]

7. done : )

but it looks like they're "reviewing" them before posting them. Mine was pretty long. . . hope it goes up.

[MBS]

11. hmm, almost 2 hours since I posted my comments. . and still not up

Grrrr

[fedupinBushcountry]

12. I posted too

and still not up either.

[MBS]

17. comments have finally shown up

(You have to click on "show all comments" (or something like that) to see the 14 that are up there so far. The usual mix.

[MBS]

3. I'm overwhelmed by the resemblance to toads

Perfectly worthy animals, but still.

[fedupinBushcountry]

5. What a little weasel

OMG, he is such a twerp.

[ProSense]

15. Weasel?

He's that and then some. That guy is a major-league asshole.

He's clueless and arrogant, a dangerous combination.

[MBS]

16. perfectly worded n/t

[fedupinBushcountry]

23. Actually

he reminds me of a cockroach, I just want to step on him and squish the hell out of him.

[whometense]

10. That's it!

I couldn't put my finger on who he reminded me of - but I swear, now that you mention it, it was Mr. Toad!

[Luftmensch067]

20. Mr. Toad was a far more generous and noble animal

Despite his uncontrollable enthusiasms. He would never be so ungenerous (except to policemen and washerwomen.) EOR doesn't even deserve to be compared to any other innocent animals -- he's a mean, uninformed HECKLER, plain and simple.

[TayTay]

9. front-paged on BMG

http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12867

[TayTay]

13. Geez, they've never heard of RoadblockRepublicans

And all the work Senator Kerry has done in this cycle to raise money for Dems running for the Congress.

http://roadblockrepublicans.com/content/alternate

the Senator is putting money into the effort as well as the TruthFightsBack.com site in order to protect Dems from smears. This action is needed to get a more Democratic Congress and ensure that progressive legislation passes under a President Obama. BTW, Ed never endorsed Obama.

[globalvillage]

14. Good blog post on the debate

http://thebostonmemo.blogspot.com/2008/09/who-heck-is-ed-oreilly.html

[MBS]

18. thanks! After making the mistake of

reading too many of the freeper comments on various blogs today, it's refreshing, and reassuring, for me to read something from someone who gets it, and says so, clearly.

[Mass]

19. What a lame debate! Three questions: one about something that happened 6 years ago,

one about what you would do to succeed to Ted Kennedy, and one about energy?

Come on, the only interesting question was the last one, and it is also the one which shows the best O'Reilly does not get it. He has an interesting position on energy that he has probably read somewhere: deconcentration and making the states decision and local governments part of the decision making process. And, rather than expanding and challenging Kerry on that, he tries to say that Kerry is not a leader in the Senate? Whoa, this guy is really not ready for prime time if he does not even get why his position is good. Cape Wind issue is that it is replacing Exxon by another big one. I agree with him on that, except he is totally unable to explain that properly.

[MBS]

21. excellent summary n/t

[karynnj]

22. This was a major loss for O'Reilly

He is and was a long shot and needed to do far more than Kerry to win. He needed to introduce himself as a likable, respectable person to MA - he didn't succeed there. (and that is the kind way of stating it.)

He needed to demonstrate that not only does he have the skills to be a Senator, that he is sufficiently better than Kerry that the change in seniority would be worth it. Instead, he showed that, even though he has done nothing for over a year except run, he knows little of how the Senate works. He also has no conception of what influence is - implying that Leiberman has more influence because there was some ranking (from who I don't know) that Homeland Security is a more important committee than Small Business. That is not a full metric given that each Senator is on many committees and may even be valued by committees they are not on - Boxer's environmental committee gave Kerry enormous praise when he testified before them on global warming. Notice that he, unlike Edwards, is not able to speak of specifics of what he "fought" or "negotiated" as a lawyer. No specific examples, makes the claim both exceedingly weak - asking you to take him at his word before he built up any credit and completely uninspiring. Is there NO case in 35 years where he did something he could impress people with?

It is also true that you do not have to be chair on a committee to be important - and importance is not measured by seniority. One example was shown when Senator Biden, with great humility, noted the importance of Kerry on getting his soft partition of Iraq amendment passed - an amendment that passed ONLY when he made changes Kerry had said were needed for about a year. (The changes were that the Iraqis defined the states and the relative role of state and nation.) Here are his words:
"Senator Biden is much more aware of who is esteemed in the eyes of the Senate on foreign policy than O'Reilly is. Here is what Biden said on the floor of the Senate on September 25, 2007:

"But before the Senator from Massachusetts leaves the floor, I wish to say to him--and I hope it will not in any way cause him any difficulty--he and I have been close friends for over 30 years, and I want him to know, and I want my colleagues to know, that much of what this amendment we are hopefully going to vote on is about is what the Senator and I have talked about for the last 4 years and that he has led on, including the international piece.

As a matter of fact, he led on it from a different perspective, as a candidate, as well. So I wish to tell him how grateful I am for his joining in this amendment. Quite frankly, it is a big deal that he is, and it adds not only credibility to the amendment in terms of our colleagues, but it adds, quite frankly, an international credibility to it because an awful lot of people around the world look to my colleague for his insights into what we do about the most critical issue facing American foreign policy today."

As to Senator Kerry, in spite of the awful format with only short responses allowed, he did manage to explain many things he did for women, small business people, Massachusetts. EOR's comment that the tech funding bill started in the House is either precious or so uninformed he would fail the middle school class where kids learn that ALL funding bills start in the House - even if the program was first proposed in the Senate.

[beachmom]

24. Okay, I watched the debate. My impressions:

1. Kerry was excellent on the IWR question. I thought he was quite forceful, and explained himself better today than even in 2004. I also was touched at how he referred to Bob Shrum as a "good friend". Nobody has been more trashed among Democrats than Shrum (even among us Kerry supporters), but Kerry refuses to let Shrum take all the blame. I liked that.

2. Kerry was great at talking about what he has done for the state like in terms of small business and technology. I kind of wish he had delivered some of the zingers from that totally awesome press release which came the next day to destroy Ed O'Reilly. But .... maybe it was better that he overall stayed positive and about himself, and then let the campaign unload on O'Reilly later on.

3. Ed O'Reilly gave many reasons to be against John Kerry. But the few positive things he said about himself were beyond lame. Totally unconvincing. "I'm a hard worker" is not only lame in a political debate -- it doesn't get you far in a job interview either.

4. Kerry's best moment was nailing Ed on talking about the money given to Democrats. Kerry was right on the facts, and smacked Ed down on it being false AND saying specifically where he gave money. He also was great in speaking for Obama, so that even in a debate for his race, he snuck in an Obama surrogate moment.

Overall, Kerry did very well, and the only improvement I thought he could have made was a zinger or two from the press release the next day. A solid performance from the Senator. Didn't break a sweat is right.