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I watched it. I thought he did fine. The writers and professional pundits I read were, as usual, trying to "sex up" politics. They like to pretend people other than us junkies are paying attention! If tomorrow it was reported Bush ate oatmeal for breakfast instead of his usual Corn Flakes, they'd write headlines like, "Bush shoring up oat farmer base, disses Iowa".

The first full thirty minutes was Russert (not a journalist but an ex-politico operative ala Stepphie Boy) asking the same question in different forms..."So, Mr. President, given we haven't found stockpiles of WMD's in Iraq, should you still be having sex with your wife"?

Or, "Mr. President, forgetting I'm a moron and a political hack, since David Kay says we'll never find large stockpiles of WMD's in Iraq and I never bothered to listen to anything he said after that because I'm really just a 14 year old boy that doesn't want to grow up but instead have sex with Tinkerbell and leave flaming doggie doo on Capt. Hooks doorstep, shouldn't you basically just kill yourself"?

The rest of the program was worse. He tried the old "static" model of tax cuts by claiming they "take money from the treasury" (at least he had the guts to make the most ridiculous and worst point about lowering tax rates while the Dem politicians play with the words).

He threw out the LIE that "Clinton left us with a surplus and now you have a $521 bn deficit". All CBO crap based on projections and not reality. It was the GOP Congress that gave us a one year surplus with surplus projections, not Clinton who fought them tooth and nail about "slashing programs" like Medicare (decreasing the large increase to just a big increase).

The professional pundits think Bush comes off bad when he "uh uh's" and stops to actually think instead of just throwing out memorized lines and talking points like Clinton and most Dems.

I could almost see Bush wanting to talk like he probably did in his drinking and less religious days. Throwing in his TRUE thinking and the colorful words to go with it. I think he pauses to catch himself from saying, "that's the biggest crock of sh** question I've ever heard Russert. What, did your mommy breast feed you too long?" Or, "the questions about my National Guard service just come from the same worthless pieces of bulls*** that spit on our soldiers after Vietnam", etc.

And I liked when he said he didn't think it was a good idea (free advice for you Kerry, from the guy that's going to wipe his a$$ with you in November) to compare service in the National Guard to "other things"...I wish he had been more specific but anyone actually wathcing (us junkies) knew what he was referring to. And I liked it when he said Vietnam was a political war and the politicians, not the military, screwed the pooch there. Totally true and totally wipes out Kerry's Vietnam record and highlights his Jane Fonda moments after he returned.

Nixon did more to let the military do it's job and caught more flack for it (Laos, more bombing which the Dems loved in Kosovo, and other moves) even though his political moves were mostly in concert with the peace process to end the conflict. Johnson and McNamara were far worse than Nixon and Kissinger in their execution of that war.

Overall, I think Russert looked the worse. He was not very professional and was scowling the entire time! I looked like a hit piece.