Either Kerry was very well prepared or he knew the questions beforehand. Either way he did well in managing to hide all the waffling inherent in his positions.
Between now and the next debate the "Pass the Global Test" will be Kerry's undoing as a candidate.
After what See BS pulled with it's fake documents, this is not out of the realm of possibility. I don't know how it could be proved though. Unless Leahr was asked to take a lie detector test or something. Leahr's "10,052 oops , I mean 1052 lives lost in Iraq" seemed deliberate too.
The rats pulled a dirty trick with the camera angles and the position of the podiums. The orange lines in the background of camera shots of Bush were farther apart than the ones in Kerry's shots which made Bush look smaller than Kerry.
Here's another tin foil theory: Was the "over tan" done on purpose? When I first heard that Kerry was orange, I couldn't believe he would make the same mistake Gore made. Kerry is a dork at times, and he's definitely an elitist, but he's not stupid. He's a smooth talker. The "orange tan" set up the expectation with the public and possibly president Bush, that Kerry would be like Gore- stressed out, emotional, loose cannon. Instead Kerry comes out looking smooth and calm, well versed in his answers (even if they were outright lies.)- Just by not looking like Gore, Kerry scored points( Have no idea if there is any truth to this, but if it was planned ahead of time, hats off to Kerry's people for a very clever scheme.)
Love the idea of having Hannity and Colmes moderate , that's the only way it will be fair. I'm tired of slanted, boring debates done by MSM lefties. Why don't they try something different? The pols are whining about how few people participate, more would if they made it interesting.
IMO president Bush won the debate overall. Kerry looked/sounded good, but he flip flopped on Saddam being a threat in the same debate. I thought Bush scored a TKO on Kerry's asking allies to join him in the "wrong war" or "diversion" and how using terms like these does not win allies, does not support the troops. Liked the "global test" comments too.
He also brought the point home, that, no matter what Kerry says or how he looks saying it, he can't be trusted to stay the course. I think the "depends on the outcome" answer kerry gave, when asked if going to Iraq was worth it, on Diane Sawyer's show disqualified him from being CIC outright.
Unfortunately it's going to be a horse race. I would like to think that people won't fall for Kerry's "Clinton-esque" style, but they voted for Bill twice. (Bush needs to study Clinton- every thing Kerry does is textbook Clinton, not Gore.)