quote: Kerry flubed a few times on facts, mainly the "there's WMD crossing the border every day" line. That was odd
I didn't interpret that as a flub. I interpreted that as "The WMD haven't been found, but there are WMDs coming into Iraq every day." You know, the terrorists? Blowing up things? Kidnapping?
It's like those people who say "We found the WMD--Saddam Hussein."
posted
Bombs and mortars are not WMD though: or Bush would have a lock on the election and justification for invading Iraq -if they are.
Fuck that noise.
I liked Bush pointing out that Poland was on our side: great. They'll be instrumental in...er....um... Yeah.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
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And we should be glad to thank Tonga with 45 troops, Singapore with 33 troops, Kazakhstan with 29 troops, and Moldova with 12 soldiers in Iraq. Among others.
posted
Omega: I was thinking too I'd wish they would do these things through medium-length posting on a board not unlike the National Review's and the New Republic's series on NRO where the editors straight debate each other.
-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
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quote: Who even knew Poland had special forces? For a while, not many. The Polish government waited three years before publicly disclosing GROM's existence.
Cool. I sure never heard of them...thanks for the link!
...though they should have been named GORT for some retro style.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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-------------------- "Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."
"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 6th century B.C.E.
Registered: May 1999
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posted
The problem with an online debate being that we'd have no way of knowing if it was actually them posting.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Not like we know if it's actually their sentiments being expressed as it is or just what demographics and some speach writers think will win the election.
They could just have their writers post in for them and "approve the message" like their commercials.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Personally, I think Bush won it. My opinion of his debate 'strategery' was so very low that his actual performance seemed spectacular by comparison. Kerry, meanwhile, had been presented as a debating powerhouse of Lincolnian or Ingersollian proportions, but ended up looking like a tall, waffling douchebag.
Don't get me wrong, though . . . Kerry, though not looking presidential at all, is more capable with language than Bush could ever hope to be . . . and call me crazy, but I value that in a president.
However, Kerry talked much but said little . . . he was a master of the vague and contradictory. In the below, I go entirely by memory, like many Americans probably will . . . (but I'll check the transcript later).
He wants to build alliances, but go it alone with NK at the table. He wants to leave Iraq quickly, sometime. He will talk to Europe about something. He will rebuild alliances with those who are bribed and coerced and who he seems to have little respect for by showing that he has respect for them, somewhere. He will put federal funds into state/city road projects. He complains about the lack of kevlar body armor that he shot down. And so on.
Bush, meanwhile, scored a few points. He completely threw Kerry when the two discussed family, and if Bush had wanted to play nice guy all night he could've done so with maneuvers of that sort. Bush's overall tactics, however, while not as horrendous as I expected, were nonetheless quite terrible. There were times when I heard Kerry say things that left him open to devastating attack, but Bush almost never pressed the advantage. On those occasions when he did, he did it over and over and over and over and over. Yes, Kerry's position changes with the tide . . . yes, his voting record is like a spray-and-pray of positions. We all followed along the first three times it was said. While this repetition might've helped to hypnotize some watchers, it didn't really work. It was just hard work, another repeated phrase. That said, though, it was Bush, surprisingly, who was the debater who was on the ball with his details, though I haven't gone back to fact-check them.
In short, Kerry was all promise, little substance, and weak tactics. Bush was substance, often weaker tactics, and lesser speaking ability.
I don't think there really was a winner, to be honest, but by not getting gutter-stomped Bush won the battle.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote:North Korea: Kerry killed on this one. While Bush went to war against Saddam Hussein on the false belief that he might be developing a "weapons of mass destruction-related program," North Korea�another spoke on the "axis of evil"�started to develop real nuclear weapons. When Bush took office, 8,000 fuel rods were locked in a storage pond under continuous monitoring of international inspectors. As Kerry correctly noted, Colin Powell said publicly he'd continue on course�and President Bush publicly admonished him. Within months, the North Koreans kicked out the inspectors, unlocked and carted away the fuel rods, and reprocessed them into weapons-grade plutonium�in the course of which Bush did nothing. Kerry called for opening bilateral talks with North Korea to solve the problem.
President Bush said such talks would be a "big mistake." If we sat down one-on-one, he said, North Korea would walk out of the six-power talks, which also involve Japan, South Korea, Russia, and China. Bilaterals will accomplish nothing. Kerry replied that just because Bush says they'll accomplish nothing doesn't mean they will.
Point for Kerry. But it would have been a more solid point had Kerry noted that all the other participants in those six-power talks want the United States to have bilateral talks with North Korea.
Regarding the bilateral talks, Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus write:
quote:On North Korea, Bush charged that Kerry's proposal to have direct talks with that country would end the six-nation diplomacy that the administration has pursued over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. Kerry has said he would continue the six-party talks as well. Bush said direct talks with North Korea would drive away China, a key player in the negotiations.
But each of the other four countries in the talks has held direct talks with North Korea during the six-party process -- and China has repeatedly asked the Bush administration to talk directly with North Korea. Moreover, the Bush administration has talked directly with North Korean diplomats on the sidelines of the six-party talks, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met with his North Korean counterpart over the summer.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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However, I do not recall anyone saying this and found no mention of this in the transcript.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Jay the Obscure: Ah, yes...Poland.
President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland: "They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."
There's some controversy regarding that statement in Poland. Apparently it was kinda... mistranslated.
Twice.
What Kwasniewski actually said was: "I think that todays Iraq, without Saddam Hussein, is better place than Iraq with Saddam Hussein, but of course I feel a certain discomfort that we were deceived about weapons of mass destruction."
Some claim that this radically changes the meaning of this statetement.
There's more: After people started asking about the meaning of this statement Marek Siwiec, presidential security adviser said that the one engagin in deception is... Saddam Hussein.
And yeah, GROM kicks some serious ass
-------------------- "Do I remember about my amnesia?"
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