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Posted on 10/02/2004 5:41:30 PM PDT by FairOpinion
It wasn't on the DNC talking points fax.
in all due respect that is a dumb question. you know the answer.
Ah hem, excuse me....highlighting Kerry's Senate record is not Leher's job. It was Bush's and he failed to take advantage of it. Kerry's record is a giant pinata hanging in front of Bush's face and he didn't see it.
Too bad for us.
Yes, inquiring minds want to know why none of these quesstions were asked of Nuancyboy. Oh, but that's right. Lehrer is true blue RAT.
The point when Kerry talked about visiting Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union was the opportunity for the President. I was screaming at the TV and I'm sure most conservatives were, "bring up his Cold War record!!" Unfortunately it didn't happen.
Lehrer should have asked, but he's a liberal, what do we expect? Of course he's not going to be fair. The President does not have such an excuse.
I have another question regarding the debate. Why did President Bush agree to any debates at all? He is the sitting President of the United States. Why should he have to debate some upstart challenger not once, but THREE times? It's demeaning and pointless. Such an activity can only help the challlenger--if you don't believe me, ask Jimmy Carter. President Bush should have shown some cojones, laid it on the line and said in effect, "Look, I refuse to debate Mr. Kerry. There's no point in it, and I'm not known as a great public speaker anyway. Judge me by my actions, not by some song and dance at a podium. If anyone wants to vote against me because I won't take part in such a demeaning activity, so be it." Face it, the guy has a few bucks in the bank; it's not like he NEEDS the presidential gig, anyway. Just some thinking outside the box.
The President looked rattled and unfocused the entire night. Who in the world prepped him? Kerry left himself wide open for attacks and Bush did nothing. I hope Mrs. Bush will do the same thing Mrs. Reagan did after her husband's debacle in his first debate in 1984, and that is to call in the troops, give them a tongue lashing, and come up with a gameplan to avoid another debacle in the next debates.
See post 9, supra.
"The President looked rattled and unfocused the entire night"
Sure he did, because the "debate" was more of a joint press conference. Have you ever seen Dubya at a press conference. He looks--and sounds--like a nervous high-schooler who forgot to study the night before his presentation. He's like a fish out of water in such situations and should avoid them at all costs .
Calling this a debate is a misnomer. What it amounted to was GWB having to defend himself.
Asking FAIR questions from both sides WAS Lehrer's job.
I posted this before, but apparently some have not seen it.
Here is the list of Lehrer's questions, which were NOT designed to find out anything. His questions to Bush: "We know you did everything wrong, please explain why", plus a few set-up/trap questions. His Questions to Kerry: Please tell us what you think Bush did wrong.
Here are the questions. See for yourself. The job of the moderator IS to ask revealing questions of BOTH candidates.
Lehrer Biased Questions (extracted from Transcript)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1232331/posts
Q 1 (to Kerry): Do you believe you could do a better job than President Bush in preventing another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States?
Q 2 (to Bush): Do you believe the election of Senator Kerry on November the 2nd would increase the chances of the U.S. being hit by another 9/11-type terrorist attack?
Q 3 (to Kerry): "Colossal misjudgments." What colossal misjudgments, in your opinion, has President Bush made in these areas?
Q 4 (to Bush): What about Senator Kerry's point, the comparison he drew between the priorities of going after Usama bin Laden and going after Saddam Hussein?
Q 5 (to Kerry): As president, what would you do, specifically, in addition to or differently to increase the homeland security of the United States than what President Bush is doing?
Q 6 (to Bush): What criteria would you use to determine when to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq?
Q 7: (to Kerry): Speaking of Vietnam, you spoke to Congress in 1971, after you came back from Vietnam, and you said, quote, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
Are Americans now dying in Iraq for a mistake?
Q 8: (to Bush): You have said there was a, quote, "miscalculation," of what the conditions would be in post-war Iraq. What was the miscalculation, and how did it happen?
Q 9 (to Kerry): You just -- you've repeatedly accused President Bush -- not here tonight, but elsewhere before -- of not telling the truth about Iraq, essentially of lying to the American people about Iraq. Give us some examples of what you consider to be his not telling the truth.
Q 10: (to Bush): Has the war in Iraq been worth the cost of American lives, 10,052... uh... 1,052 as of today?
Q 11: (to Kerry): Speaking of your plan, new question, Senator Kerry. Can you give us specifics, in terms of a scenario, time lines, et cetera, for ending major U.S. military involvement in Iraq?
Q 12: (to Bush): Does the Iraq experience make it more likely or less likely that you would take the United States into another preemptive military action?
Q 13(to Kerry): What is your position on the whole concept of preemptive war?
Q 14 (to Bush): Do you believe that diplomacy and sanctions can resolve the nuclear problems with North Korea and Iran? Take them in any order you would like.
Q 15 (to Kerry): Senator Kerry, you mentioned Darfur, the Darfur region of Sudan. Fifty thousand people have already died in that area. More than a million are homeless. And it's been labeled an act of ongoing genocide. Yet neither one of you or anyone else connected with your campaigns or your administration that I can find has discussed the possibility of sending in troops.
Why not?
Q 16 (to Bush): Clearly, as we have heard, major policy differences between the two of you. Are there also underlying character issues that you believe, that you believe are serious enough to deny Senator Kerry the job as commander in chief of the United States?
Q 17 (to Kerry): If you are elected president, what will you take to that office thinking is the single most serious threat to the national security to the United States?
Q 18 (to Bush): All right. Mr. President, this is the last question. And two minutes. It's a new subject -- new question, and it has to do with President Putin and Russia. Did you misjudge him or are you -- do you feel that what he is doing in the name of antiterrorism by changing some democratic processes is OK?
Yes, but why should Bush--a sitting President--have agreed to participate in 3 such farces in the first place?
Jim Lehrer is a leftist dimocrat. He went in having no intention of being even handed. He stuck it to the President and gave Fing Kerry a free ride.
DING! You get the prize! You are exactly right. It would have hurt President Bush much less, to let the Dems whine, than to agree to the debates.
I cringed, when I heard that they give in to the Democrats and agreed to 3 debates, even though they only agreed to two originally.
think of what the opposition would have said to him if he hadn't agreed to the debates. I agree tho that 3 was a little over the top. Unless Bush wins the next 2. then we'll be saying how smart it was.
I agree that Bush could have hammered Kerry on a multitude of positions; however, didn't the moderator say he made up the questions before the debate? If he did, then he intentionally overlooked any questions that might have put Kerry on the defensive. He did not even need to go back to Kerry's 20 years in the senate. There was plenty of fodder from the day Kerry announced his candidacy. The debate focused on Iraq and how many positions has Kerry taken on Iraq? He should have been called on some of them.
"think of what the opposition would have said to him if he hadn't agreed to the debates"
So let them talk. Let the chickens cluck. If a man can't stand criticism for taking the right course of action, he doesn't deserve to be President.
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