Shut Up And Listen 187

Debate Numero Tres: If Someone Doesn't Kill These Assholes, I Fucking Will. I Mean it. Someone should fucking kill these two dumb fucks for the good of the world. They are total fucking idiots who don't deserve to be president. I mean, come on! If you were to chose someone to be president, would either one of these fuck-wits even make your top 5000? Fuck no! I say, we get together and kill them and basically the next 2000 people in line after them. Maybe then we'll actually find someone who we all can actually stomach as the most powerful leader in the world. Oh yeah, I'm cynical and bitter. Fuck it. This is the third one of these I've had to watch. You're lucky I'm sober.

God, I love that title. I'm tempted to stop right there.

Now, I'd like to address why I bother covering these things if I hate them so much. Firstly, I am a fan of politics. I find it entertaining. So there's a natural attraction there. Secondly, these things matter. They make a difference and we should all pay attention. Thirdly, there's a need for people to watch these things and bitch about doing it. To give them a hard look and find their faults. To try and make people see that things could be better and they should work towards that. It may not affect anything now, or ever, actually, but it could someday, with luck.

What to expect from the debate? Kerry to at least tie Bush. Kerry handles these things much better than Bush, but to be fair, Bush did slightly better in the second debate than the first one. If Kerry can actually answer the questions instead of just moulding the questions to suit his answer. Bush needs to actually remain strong and consistent instead of burning out in twenty minutes. Expect more of the same.

Kerry looks like a man who's already won the debate and Bush has this look that says "I'm totally fucked." To be fair, Kerry has reason to be confident and Bush has reason to feel doomed.

I've heard all this before. Kerry's answer to the first question of will we ever be safe gave him reason to give his "Bush didn't do enough . . . cargo holds . . . FDR, JFK . . . yadda, yadda, yadda . . ."

Bush is the same . . . "stay on the offence . . . freedom and liberty . . . 3/4s of Al Queda . . . blah, blah, blah . . ."

HAHAHAHA! Kerry just made Bush falter for the first time by bringing up bin Laden and Bush's failure to capture him.

A question about flu shots actually gave us an instance where Bush's answer was better than Kerry's, but Kerry will gain support because of it. Bush gave an actually smart answer, but he did it slowly and quietly. Kerry gave a superficial answer that went from flu shots to Medicare to why Bush sucks, but he did it with confidence. Fuck him for making Bush look better to me.

Bush was going strong, but then fell back into "pleading mode". That's his biggest problem in these debates. Kerry always states his case with confidence and Bush pleads it with whining. That fucks him up the most. I will admit he's doing better tonight than in the past. Kerry is about the same.

What is with Bush and the word "litany"? He's said it a few times tonight and I don't know why. Is that a word-of-the-day word or something? A word he's decided to use in an effort to look smarter? Strange.

And while I'm on the topic of his intelligence, I want to address something. Bush is smart in his own way, as people have pointed out. But the way they say he's smart is with political cunning and campaigning. This that the kind of smart you want?

Holy shit! Bush was given a question, he answered, Kerry responded and then Bush just launched into a screed in response to that response. Except Kerry didn't get another 30 seconds. What the fuck?

Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter--his daughter is a lesbian, by the way, if you didn't know--a lesbian is a gay woman--and Dick Cheney's daughter is one--she's a lesbian--Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian--is something Kerry and Edwards have used as a tool against Bush and Cheney--whose daughter is a lesbian. I'm not sure what I think about that.

Alright, this annoys me. Bush does not promote life, okay? When he says he does, he's a fucking liar. He may be against abortion, but that has nothing to do with life. How can you say you're for life when the state you were governor of executed so many people? You can't say you're against abortion because of a concern for life and be for capital punishment without being a total fucking hypocrite, okay?

And Bush has collapsed again. He's doomed. He's barely speaking in complete sentences. He has no stamina in these debates. He blows his wad right away. I maintain that this is because he hasn't had to deal with criticism these past four years really. This is a man who was so isolated from criticism that he can't deal with it like this. You probably won't see this again in the future though, because the parties are watching and learning, and will prevent this from happening again.

Heh. Bush is such a buffoon! Kerry mentioned "leading news organizations" and after, Bush mumbled something along the lines of, "I don't think it's proper to quote leading news organizations--ah, never mind." Such a fucking moron.

Honestly, it's mostly more of the same. You can go back to the beginning of the column and what I wrote there still applies.

Once again, Bush is getting many more opportunities to respond to Kerry with extra time. Kerry doesn't seem to get the same and often is left using up time in new questions to continue the discussion. Strange.

Bush just pulled a Kerry! Kerry hammered him on the question of minimum wage and what did Bush do? Talk about that for around, oh, five seconds and then BAM! He's talking about education for some reason. And unlike Kerry, the transition was not smooth. At least Kerry can shift topics with skill.

Bush was asked directly about Roe v. Wade--he was specifically asked if he supports changing it and he didn't fucking answer! I mean . . . my god! What the fuck?

You know, I'm looking back on what I've written and it may seem like I'm favouring Kerry over Bush, and that is a possibility, but Kerry is honestly doing better.

Bush defended his education plan by saying that "only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would call a 49% increase not enough". Obviously, that is a foolish statement. I mean, how can you argue that you've ever actually done enough to increase the quality of education? And since when is demanding more a bad thing? Bush is actively giving answers that are horribly weak and flawed.

Kerry basically called Bush a closet racist and Bush kind of mumbled a response that lead to more talking about how he made education better.

The final question was a pussy question about the women in both candidates' lives. Bush performed much better on it because he's a more relaxed, laid-back kind of guy. Maybe I'd feel different about this question if the candidate I side with (barely) was better at this kind of thing, but I doubt it. Stupid fucking question.

Kerry's final statement was a stating of his case. Bush's was designed to hit the soft spots. To gain sympathy and appeal to the heart rather than the head.

My assessment of the debate: Kerry destroyed Bush. Bush is a pussy. He is weak and should be put down like a dog (politically speaking, of course).

Doomed Debates: The Summary According To Chad

If I had to sum up the debates in one word, the word I would use is: doom. I've said it before and I'll say it again: America is doomed.

In George Bush, we have a stubborn, foolish little man who is so caught up in his own little world he cannot even grasp the idea that there is a viewpoint beyond his own. When directly challenged, he breaks down because he no longer knows how to deal with criticism. He is extremely dangerous, because when challenged, there is always a chance he will blow up and do something drastic.

On the other hand, there's John Kerry, who played us all in the debates. He rarely directly answered questions, preferring to have questions suit his answers. He claims to differ greatly from Bush, but like almost every Democrat, is really just a Republican with no balls. He was weak too in the debates. He always pushed his criticism of Bush only to a certain point and then backed off out of pity for the president. People are right when they say he may not have the balls to protect America. He doesn't even have the balls to crush his opponent, who flat-out deserves to be verbally beaten in public until he weeps with shame. Kerry failed to do this when he easily could have.

But then again, as has been said to me by a few people: it would have made Kerry look like a bully picking on a retarded kid.

I'm going to continue to support Kerry though. He is, sadly, a better alternative than four more years of Bush.

Honestly, I was amazed at some of the reactions I saw to these debates. Like anyone who said Bush won the first debate: you are wrong and you are stupid for saying that. Anyone who said Kerry won the second debate: you are wrong and you are stupid for saying that. Anyone who came away with a pleasant picture of either candidate, and hope for tomorrow: you are just ignorant fools who will mostly likely pay the most.

Political discussions never cease to amaze me in the way they manage to make normally smart people look like blithering, ignorant fools (myself no exception to that, of course). Their blind loyalty to candidates just sickens me. I've lost more respect for people I used to think intelligent in the past month than you'd think possible. And that's on both sides. No one came out of this looking good.

So saddle up for the final three weeks of the campaign and try not to kill yourself.