Sick and tired of the current George W. Bush? Build your own!

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9:18 – Oh crap, Bush is (compared to past performances) actually speaking – sort of. He can’t wipe that smirk off his face, though. Kerry seems off his game. A friend points out, though, that Bush has a little bit of spittle on the side of his face.

9:20 – Kerry unleashed his (no doubt canned) line about Tony Soprano joke. Heh.

9:21 – OK, Kerry little like he’s got a bit of life back in him yet. I think he needs to rattle Bush.

9:24 – We’re now having a debate about the spittle. I don’t think it’s spittle. My friend says yes.

9:26 – We’re still groaning about Kerry’s performance.

9:26 – Uh oh. Looks like Bush and I disagree about gay marriage.

9:28 – Is it wrong to bring up the fact that Dick Cheney’s daughter is a lesbian (again)? For reasons which I haven’t been able to put my finger on, I find myself a bit squeamish about using that against Bush. [Yeah, yeah. It's just a feeling okay? It doesn't rise to the level of an opinion.]

9:34 – I think I finally understand the “expectations game”. I keep thinking that Bush is doing better than he is in fact doing because I wasn’t expecting him to do as well as he’s doing, even though that isn’t very good.

9:39 – Cries of “Kerry doesn’t fight back!” are filling the room.

9:41 – I notice that Bush didn’t take the bait on Roe v. Wade earlier. But he almost came off sounding pro-choice as a result.

9:46 – Kerry said “CBO” without explaining what that is. Then explained. Thank God.

9:47 – Kerry keeps bragging that he’s broken with his party. Those nasty, nasty Democrats. Wouldn’t want to be associated with them. Meanwhile, Bush almost seems to be running as a “uniter not a divider”. Surreal.

9:50 – Wonkette writes:

9:43PM: NOTE TO READERS: We saw the foam, too. The voice in Bush’s ear told him to wipe it off.

Huh. I guess he did have spittle on the side of his mouth (his right).

9:51 – Bush just looks so happy with himself tonight.

9:52 – Bush was a “border Governor”. A friend says: “Borderline Governor”.

9:55 – Shorter Bush: *smirk*

9:56 – Bush: Borders are much better protected now than when I was in charge of it in Texas! (paraphrase)

10:01 – Bush dodges another question about Roe v. Wade. Then he has the nerve to criticize Kerry for having a “litmus test”.

10:05 – Ooooh. Kerry manages to get in some foreign policy digs. But he forgot Poland. Bush claims 125,000 Iraqi troops trained by the end of this year. This would be a nice time for Kerry to call him a big fucking liar on national television.

10:07 – I really hope that most people are watching the game tonight.

10:21 – I really wish that I was watching the game tonight. And I don’t even like baseball.

10:22 – Oh, Bush is upset about partistanship. Very interesting. I wonder if he’s ever heard of a certain Karl Rove.

10:25 – Kerry doesn’t want to talk about Teresa. Just wants to talk about his mom.

10:26 – Oh thank God, it’s coming to an end.

Verdict: I think the media’s verdict will be that Bush won. I have a hard time figuring out how Bush plays with undecideds, but I would guess that Bush did reasonably well with them. I think Kerry held his own, but the standard by which these things are decided isn’t fair. Thank goodness most people were watching the game.

After: Watching Fox commentary. They’re marvelling at the fact that Bush was briefed before the debate. Talk about your expectations game.

Howls of outrage (3)

. . . and after watching the video DeLong links to, so do I.

Give it a watch, and see what you think. I’m torn between DeLong’s explanation #3 and #4, myself. Vote in the comments if you’re so inclined.

A single voice crying in the wilderness (1)

Yes, I think this is right:

During the primaries, we kept hearing about how “angry” Howard Dean was. And then there was the scream. By those media rules, the Shrub should be in for a serious pruning. His outburst during the debate was not just unpresidential, it was downright uncivil. Bush’s bullying, interrupting tirade — coming from a man who couldn’t answer the standard interview question about mistakes he had made and how he corrected them — gave a rare public glimpse of what we already know from policy outcomes and insider reports: he is constitutionally incapable of listening to criticism or dissenting views.

That clip of Bush shouting down the debate moderater, Charles Gibson, should be broadcast over and over on television news at least until the next debate. Will we even see it again?

After the last debate, I half-heartedly stuck up for scowling and slouching, for not entirely disinterested reasons. But Bush did seem very angry last night, and as I also said, if the media is going to put so much emphasis on that sort of thing, we might as well demand that they ding Bush as hard as anyone else.

Howls of outrage (2)

Matthew Yglesias writes:

NO MISTAKES. Once again, the president won’t admit to having made any mistakes (besides, perhaps, hiring Paul O’Neill). It’s simply an absurd point of view — even if you think the decision to invade Iraq wasn’t a mistake, it’s simply impossible to believe that the execution has been flawless. This is the mentality of a deeply, deeply deluded person who’s going to make mistake after mistake after mistake if given more time in office. And the really crazy thing is that he won’t even realize it.

I read this sort of thing a lot. And perhaps it’s true. But the fact is that it’s political suicide to admit mistakes, especially big ones, and everyone knows it. So it’s entirely possible – though, probably unlikely – that Bush bangs his head against the wall every night about all the things that Matthew Yglesias bangs his head against the wall about. But there’s no way that he could admit that, and it’s not just because lying comes so naturally to him. It’s because the entire political culture punishes admissions of error, since once a politician admits error, reporters stop doing the he said/he said thing and just shift to reporting the error.

Of course, I’m very receptive to the view that Bush can’t admit error, even to himself. But the fact that he publicly refuses to admit error just shows that he’s not willing to commit political suicide on national television. This is a tricky issue, because we need to call Bush on it every time he lies. But we also need to remember that the problem of how we deal with mistakes is deeper than that, and it won’t go away if Bush gets the boot.

Howls of outrage (6)

Bush continues to take a beating for scowling during the debate. Here’s a fairly representative sample:

So who was that George Bush we saw Thursday night? The one who at times looked more peevish and bored than gregarious and resolute?

The notion that voters may come away from the debate thinking of Bush as someone who becomes upset when challenged is potentially devastating to the image of the president that the White House has fostered since Sept. 11, 2001.

Obviously the political effects of this kind of media focus are welcome to me. If the election is going to turn on inane trivialities like whether a candidate can refrain from scowling when someone he really dislikes is saying something really offensive to him, then it might as well turn in the direction I want it to. And I suppose it’s fair in the sense that Bush was helped by Gore’s sighing, and in the sense that Bush rests so much of his political appeal on his supposedly likable persona rather than actual substance.

But why oh why must it turn on this sort of thing at all? Call me bonkers, but I’d like to see the American people reject Bush because he supports torture, because he botched two wars, because he’s either lying or delusional about almost every single policy his administration pursues, and so on and on and on. A win is a win, and I desperately want Kerry to win. But it’s still depressing to think that something as human and natural as scowling or hunching a bit over a podium is going to count in the end for as much as all the good reasons put together, at least as far as The Undecideds – whoever they are – are concerned.

Who are The Undecideds? Who are the people who reserved judgement after Abu Ghraib, after the pre-war intelligence failures, after Tora Bora, after the continuing scandal that has been Bush’s domestic policies – but who suddenly saw the president in a different light when he was caught hunching over a podium? As an irritable observer of politics with a terrible posture but very sensible policy proposals, thank you very much, I find this whole mess so very odd and depressing.

Howls of outrage (8)

Well, this is interesting:

John Kerry’s is 17.7% longer than George Bush’s.

Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, you pervert! He’s talking about average sentence length.

A single voice crying in the wilderness (1)

Crooked Timber reminds me that Bush once said:

�Let me make very clear the position of my government and our country. We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.�

But the U.S. government does condone torture. It condoned torture long before Bush came to power, but after September 11th, its support for torture become more deeply entrenched, far more widespread, far less discriminating, more cavalier, more a matter of official policy. Bush may not have directly ordered torture – though he may have – but then presidents rarely issue direct operational orders. What matters is that, at the very least, Bush continues to support the men and women who work for him and who did clearly order torture. By doing so, he has, at the very least, given retrospective approval to torture.

As for the values of the country, pretty obviously the country contains multitudes. America is Rush Limbaugh and Paul Krugman, and there are deep disagreements between citizens on moral questions. But I think the President is basically right: The best and the most important values of the country are utterly in conflict with the use of torture. That’s why Bush’s presidency is such a strain on the country’s honour. That’s why he is either a liar when he repudiates torture, or an even bigger fool than he looks.

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Here’s the latest from the Borowitz Report:

DEBATE TRANSCRIPT RELEASED ONE DAY EARLY

Face-off Overly Choreographed, Critics Charge

A full transcript of Thursday�s presidential debate between President George W. Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry was released today, sparking criticism that the debate has been overly choreographed by the committee representing the two major parties.

The transcript, full of pre-planned quips and sound bites from both candidates, is a verbatim reflection of what the actual debate will be on Thursday night, a committee member confirmed.

�We have shared the written transcript with both President Bush and Senator Kerry and warned them to stick to the script,� said Davis Loudon of the Presidential Debate Steering Committee. �If they stray one iota, we�re threatening to turn the heat in the room up to 71 degrees.�

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Oh man, the Dems are gonna lose if Bush keeps racking up endorsements like this one.

Via Discourse.net

Ok, back to work. Sorry I haven’t responded to anyone’s comments. I’m really busy.

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Are you having trouble winning elections the old-fashioned way? Why not try something even older-fashioned? Why not just appeal to the divine right of kings?

I’m kidding. More or less. But honestly, this atheist gets awfully impatient some days.

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Tim Dunlop has a wonderful compare and contrast post up, for those of you who just can’t get enough on Bush hypocrisy.

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Language Log has an interesting post about changes in Bush’s language (and debating) skills over the last decade. The gist of it is that he didn’t used to sound like that.

Intriguing. And very peculiar.

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Am I missing something here?

Bushism of the Day
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Thursday, June 3, 2004, at 8:44 AM PT

“[A] free Iraq is essential to our respective securities.”�Washington, D.C., June 1, 2004

What’s the matter with that?

Come on, people. Focus! He’s a complete knob doing a terrible job. This kind of reaching is just pathetic – and unnecessary.

Howls of outrage (4)

The Aardvark is on the case.

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