Tardy Debate Analysis

While I'm thrilled that John Kerry is getting a lot of positive response to his performance last Thursday, I didn't come away with the same impression from the debate. Thanks to low expectations, our president's best friend, I was shocked by George W. Bush's command of statistics and actual information--even if some of it was wrong. He rattled off some details on Homeland Security that, admittedly, Bill Clinton could have rattled off under his breath--except George W. Bush is no Bill Clinton.

Sadly.

Kerry didn't give much in the way of details, although he looked stately and presidential. I like the guy, but I wasn't energized by him. Bush glared and glowered and demanded that his way was right, no matter what. Business as usual, it seemed--but for once that seems to be getting bad reviews. But I thought that Bush's strength is supposedly his resolve, his unbending will in the face of doubt, no matter what the truth of the situation might be. He's been demanding for years that Iraq is a good idea, that tax cuts are needed, that he is always right. And while I've always considered him a pompous jerk for it, his poll numbers have been sky-high.

I didn't see him act any differently on Thursday-I saw him hammer his simple, wrong but easy-to-remember message. Maybe it just took seeing Bush's retardedness directly contrasted with a thoughtful, not-pledged-to-loyalty, articulate human being to draw out these differences and breathe life into the fading Kerry campaign.

I just hope it's not too little too late.