Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves

Alright, maybe the stakes are not that high, but a damn important debate was had here tonight. Kerry seemed to me to be the clear winner on points, he very aggressively went after the President on Iraq, nukes, and the general subject of not changing a disastrous course. Kerry didn't have any "You, sir, are not Jack Kennedy" knockout blows, but he did get his hits in. Bush did get one real howler in when he said 100,000 Iraqi troops have been trained. Even the interim Prime Minister Iraq said that only 50,000 have been trained and the real number is much less than that. On the issue of style I have to say:

Only one man looked Presidential and it wasn't the President.

I know Kerry gets knocked for being too grave, but when you talk about national security you should be grave. Bush just did not look serious. The camera caught him smirking at Kerry's answers. He actually led off some of his answers with "ahhhh." The President at one point felt compelled to say "Of course of know Osama bin Laden attacked us." That’s a real sign that Kerry had him back on his heels. Kerry stayed cool the whole time. Kerry just seemed to know more than Bush. Bush sometimes could not even talk for the full 2 minutes on some questions.

Talking Points, who I bow to in all aspects of online punditry, makes a good point:

To put it bluntly, the Bush campaign has created an image of Kerry as a weak and indecisive man, someone that -- whatever you think of President Bush -- just can't be trusted to keep the country safe in these dangerous times.
Often they've made him into an object of contempt.
Whatever else you can say about this debate, though, whatever you think of his policies, I don't think that's how Kerry came off. I think he came off as forceful and direct. And I suspect that most people who were at all genuinely undecided came away from the 90 minutes with that impression.
If President Bush's current lead is built not upon confidence in him or his policies but in a simple belief that Kerry isn't solid enough to be president, then I think this performance could help Kerry a good deal.

Kerry did not look like a flip-flopper tonight and that could help a lot. The trick now is to win the spin war. We need to start our very own conventional wisdom. Tell your friends. Tell a pollster. Tell the guy who sits next to you on the bus.

Only one man looked Presidential and it wasn't the President.