Has the dust settled on last night’s showdown? What dust! The
commentariat, such as I could sample, all expressed surprise at how
“civil” the debate turned out to be. Evidently they were still in
recovery from Al Gore’s heavy breathing and bullying four years
back. It’s a credit to President Bush’s likable persona that he
could sigh and display annoyance all he wants and no one seemed
alarmed.
A guest on “Nightline” was the first I heard to make the
predictable point that if some alien saw last night’s two
participants in action for the first time Kerry would have been the
one who appeared more presidential. Well, duh. He’s taller,
smoother sounding, and prepared to say anything. Plus he even
smiled a few times and appeared gracious. All that private
schooling had to leave some mark.
Bush, by contrast, was caught in an act his detractors always
claim he’s incapable of: thinking. More than once he bit his
tongue, concentrated on what he wanted to say, and then offered it
up. So there we are, a pensive Bush. Some thought him tired, which
made sense. He is a war president, fully committed. What’s more,
the event ran well past his and many other people’s bedtime. Ninety
minutes was far too long a format, in any case. I kept looking at
my watch. Fortunately, the president did not, despite the
tediousness of the event which had both men repeating their points
over the over.
For clarity’s sake, there was a certain benefit to allowing both
figures have their say. We now know for certain that Kerry loves
the U.N. above all else, that he has big plans on how to win a war
we shouldn’t even be fighting, that his Vietnam experience
“defending” his country qualifies him to serve as Commander in
Chief (how long before the Swift vets reply to that?), and that he
will rally mysterious allies, none of whom he was prepared to
name.
Even after Bush gave Kerry a chance to mention Poland as one of
our sidekicks, Kerry simply could not bring himself to utter the
name of that lowly land of peasants. Teresa, after all, was in the
audience. Some political genius. Does he not know that there are
still Polish-American voters to appeal to? Doesn’t he know what
they think of snoots? Better still, Kerry bailed out Bush by citing
Australia as an administration ally in Iraq, a country inexplicably
overlooked by the president when he singled out Tony Blair and
Aleksander Kwasniewski.
As smooth and presidential and impeccably French and
cosmopolitan as Kerry was, Bush mopped the floor with him late in
the evening. Asked about Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Bush at his
folksy best talked about his “relation” with “Vladimir,” extending
his comments in such as way to drive home the point that he gets on
real fine with this allied foreign leader. Kerry could describe
nothing comparable. Instead, the only claim to Russia expertise he
could offer was a trip he took there after the fall of Communism.
Whereupon he produced the verbal gaffe of the evening, referring to
the KGB headquarters as being located on Treblinka Square. What
kind of empty suit would mistake the Nazi death camp for the
Lubianka. This is a little more serious than the Lambeau-Lambert
field fumble.
Instant replay revealed that at least Kerry managed to quote
George Will intelligently — did President Bush cite a single
conservative authority?
Not to worry: Kerry jumped at the chance to declare “nuclear
proliferation” the most serious threat to our national security. He
repeated the term in succession, like a prize pupil happy to
impress his class by showing only he knew the trick answer. In a
Gary Hart-like way he connected the problem to his own doomsday
pronouncements on the subject “six, seven years ago.” Apparently he
wrote a book called “The New War,” which for some reason has
received next to no attention this election year, perhaps because
it reveals Kerry to be wishy-washy in conceding we live in a
dangerous world. According to the New York Times, in early
July the Bush campaign attacked the book for failing to name Osama
bin Laden and al Qaeda. Further insights were offered in a Free Republic analysis and discussion, which among
other things noted that Kerry wouldn’t be eager to have defend such
phrasings as “Yasser Arafat’s transformation from outlaw to
statesman…”
Speaking of such, blogland was filled with worries beforehand
that Jim Lehrer would act like an outlaw Dan Rather rather than the
statesman moderator he again proved to be. The kvetchers should
have known better. Lehrer, it might be remembered, was one of the
few mainstreamers to give the Kerry in Cambodia matter serious
attention. He was competent and professional last night, so much so
that at this late hour I can’t recall a single thing he said. For
better or worse, I can’t say that about the other two
participants.
