Posted on 10/14/2004 6:24:03 AM PDT by blogblogginaway
That's my boy. That's my Bush. He a hoss a debatin' hoss. Last night, he was flat-out marvelous in debate. I said, following the second debate, that he had done well, but not his best. (Who does his best all the time? That's why we call it "best.") Last night, he did his best and his best is superb. And I say this as an analyst, not a Bush partisan.
Regular readers will trust me on this, I believe.
The president was relaxed, informed, commanding, thoughtful, forceful, humorous the whole array. Sometimes people ask me, "What do you see in him?" (They particularly ask this after a stumbling performance.) Well, that's what I see in him the Bush who fully emerged on October 13 is what I see.
Look, if the country saw him last night and still wants to fire him they really don't want him. What a lot of us have asked is that Bush give it his best shot. This was his best shot. I have kind of an absurd pride in him. I'm sort of bursting. If he loses, it won't be his shame; it'll be the country's.
(It's so great not to be a politician you can say what you think.)
Friends, I'm going to give you some notes, in the order rough order in which I wrote them. Then I'll be back (so to speak) for some general comments.
Kerry looks relaxed. Glad to be there. Eager to get going. Uh-oh.
His thank-yous, to everyone and his brother, are a little too confident. A little smug. Almost cocky. You know: "I got all the time in the world, I'm going to clean up in this debate, let me just thank for about five minutes."
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
ABC, NBC, Rasmussen, Gallup, C-BS, FOX, Reutters, BBC America, etc., etc., etc.
Actually, I am 'abit of a research expert (enough of one to hold PhDs from 2 highly respected research universities).
BTW: Why the nasty personal attack? I thought my response to you was quite respectful?!
Wonder if anyone else caught this
.
Schieffer 8,000 / Kerry 4,000
SCHIEFFER: Let's go to a new question, Mr. President.
I got more e-mail this week on this question than any other question. And it is about immigration.
I'm told that at least 8,000 people cross our borders illegally every day. Some people believe this is a security issue, as you know. Some believe it's an economic issue. Some see it as a human-rights issue.
How do you see it? And what we need to do about it?
KERRY: Let me just answer one part of the last question quickly, and then I'll come to immigration
(It's annoying when he does this. The most important question of the evening and he's still trying to defend himself on the last question)
BUSH: Well, to say that the borders are not as protected as they were prior to September the 11th shows he doesn't know the borders
..
KERRY: FOUR THOUSAND people a day are coming across the border. (Backs up Bush's point about Kerry not knowing the borders)
Relative to your educational stature, I'm a dolt.
My apologies.
You're the one who stated virtually all the post debate polls give the debate to Kerry.
I assume you have links to those polls.
I just went to Rasmussen and I see Bush gained today in the poll htat counts
Date Bush Kerry
Today 48.1 45.9
Oct 13 47.6 46.2
Oct 12 47.4 45.8
Great column!
You've cited polls that "describe" their relative position for the general election....not their "score" in the debate.
What does General Custer have to do with The President winning last nights Debate? if you were reading what i said correctly it was meant as a joke towards Kerry!!! on every one of is opening statements at each debate he must of said "Now I Have a Plan" at least a half dozen times.
And you cited Rasmussen as polling Kerry won the dabate.
I don't see it. The only poll I see on Rasmussen is his tracking poll.
Perhpas you'd like to share where he has a debate poll as you claim.
Good comments, brother. On the Container Inspection issue, I can shed a bit of light on that. I was a Coast Guard Marine Inspector from 1991-1997. Vessel Inspections - under our side of the "Marine Safety" branch of the USCG responsibilities - included container inspections.
Sometime around latter '95 to early '96, the Guard was tasked with improving the container inspection program. We answered as the Coast Guard always has - Semper Paratus (Always Ready) - and tackled the problem head on as we do everything else on our plate. The prime reason for this tasking was that at the time, only about 2% of containers were being inspected in the States.
Though I've been out of the game for a while now, I can tell you that the Coast Guard - without much more added in materiel resources (funds, ships, men...) quickly got that rate up to about 5-7% of all containers arriving into the Continental US. As I mentioned above, we are Always Ready; but Congress has gotten so used to our "Can Do (... and actually Getting It Done!) attitude/record of accomplishments that there is always room for improvement.
The above, despite a memorable increase in coverage of 300%, is still a low percentage. It does not tell the whole story, though. Containers were and are inspected in non-US ports. We are not the only ones concerned and working with safety issues. Many nations participate in a series of treaties (such as SOLAS - the SAFETY OF LIFE AT SEA) that are structured to provide a very effective net between the participatory nations whose goals are to ensure that standards of navigation and commerce ensure safety for human life, navigation and the environment (while at the same time recognizing that freedom of commerce is vital to the United States - and the world - economy) are met.
This is achieved by each nation acting as a node in what could be described as one part in a net of multiple "sensor" levels ( ports outside of the United States - where if a shipping company gets negative points on inspections in other ports of participating nations, COGARD inspections resources attach more attention to a vessel from that company that visits our ports) which have the effect of synergistically improving the world-wide canvassing of the "bad guys" as well as the safety of human life.
Of course, there are penalties for a participatory nation &/or shipping company that violates the treaty through non-compliance (be it through slacking of standards-met, or inspection standards and reports discovered in later visits to other ports, etc...) - these can range from higher insurance premiums (which can cause increased rates shipping companies for registered to those nations pay - "bad for commerce", etc...). The important goal that everyone in this business knows is that safety and security standards must be met so that commerce can flow more smoothly and without unnecessary delay, but not compromised (in the interest of that same need for commerce) against what is the de-facto prime directive of the treaties in the first place: Safety First.
This approach is not unlike the current paradigm in the world of technology where you can secure a network or computer to the point where it locks down all threats - but at the cost of user productivity being lowered in the resulting lockdown.
Acquired wisdom and common sense dictate that safety is best served by getting the protection scheme active in two key areas: at the "hard target" level (the actual inspections) and the more important "soft target" level: the users who are simultaneously [A] the target of the threat; [B] endeavoring to protect themselves; and [C] are best prepared to protect themselves when they have the technology and the ability to use it effectively). This requires that changes - whether in my network simile or in how security against terrorist threats improves at an efficient pace - be "good enough" to evolve at pace that the threat does not become a reality and yet not so fast or seemingly irrational as to decrease the users ability to implement the changes. In this regard, safety is in the interest of ALL nations.
But we have to come back to the percentage of actual coverage - solid numbers are comforting, even if also capable of inducing a false security when we get to a number that, say (like 80 or 90%) lets us believe that we are doing a "good enough" job (and perhaps thence lulling us into a sense of false security?). As mentioned above, I've been out for awhile now, and couldn't answer that question with hard data. I can tell you from my experience with and faith in the Coast Guard that this number is much higher than what Senator John - "Plan being a Litany-of-Complaints" - Kerry says it is.
Hope this helps... Semper Paratus.
CGVet58
Exactly - Kerry keeps sying "I have a plan"
My retort is "General Custer had a plan" - in other words a plan means nothing if you can't execute it.
Thanks so much! I still can't get it, but I'm basking in the glow of all the comments here!
'W' is for whoop-ass. Comes three to a can.
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