Some thoughts on last nights debate.

Public Enquiry Project ^ | 10/1/04 | Adrian Spidle

[AdrianSpidle]

"pentimento n. An underlying image in a painting, as an earlier painting, part of a painting, or original draft, that shows through, usually when the top layer of paint has become transparent with age."

As I walked to the office this morning my attention was drawn to the light brown outlines of fallen leaves on the fairly new sidewalk. I thought that the heavy rains from the remnants of Huricane Jeanne must have pounded little bits of the autumnal leaves pretty far into the porous concrete surface of the sidewalk to leave such perfect reflections of the now gone leaves.

For some reason the word 'pentimento" came into my mind and I struggled to match the above definition to the phenomenon I was observing. The best understanding I could conjure up was "an extraneous background that interferes rather than clarfies."

Maybe that seems a bit irrelevent to some, but it resonates with the reaction to the debate I've been hearing on Talk Radio and TV. "Kerry looked presidential," "Bush looked tired," "Kerry was in command," "Bush seemed to look for words," "Kerry is taller," "Bush looked small" etc, etc.

The best comment I've heard was from a caller on Talk Radio WRKO this morning -

"You know, all this BS we're hearing from the talking heads is meaningless. What they're saying might've been true in the past when the Major Media controlled America's news, but not anymore. Talk Radio, Fox News and the Internet are going to be anylizing THE CONTENT of the debate, not the style of the debate, and Bush won hands down on content."

My prediction - ONCE

http://pep.typepad.com/public_enquiry_project/2004/10/some_thoughts_o.html

[AdrianSpidle]

Someone just said -

"John Kerry is a very distinguished liar."