STYLE: What can I say. Dubya is Dubya. He is the same man I've been watching closely since the summer of 1999. There is something in him that is too kind to go for the jugular in these kinds of forums, as much as we who love him wish he would. He also is not an actor -- neither in the positive, professional sense of a Ronald Reagan nor in the negative sense of being artificial.
There is no artifice to GWB. So you see it in his face and body language when he's irritated, impatient, frustrated, tired, loving, kind, sincere, forthright, and so on. He was all these things, and more, tonight. He is, and always will be a diamond in the rough. A real guy doing great and difficult things out in the trenches while the effete snobs sit back in their salons, nitpicking and snickering.
Kerry, on the other hand, has some of the physical tools the president lacks. Kerry is tall, with an erect posture, and a richer tonal quality to his voice. After spending 20 years in the senate, where they do nothing but talk about minutia day in and day out, it should suprise no one that Kerry's style was smooth, his delivery polished, his manner assured, his self-control strong, and his seeming grasp of details commanding.
On substance, the president did what he always has: hammered home a few points clearly, sincerely and repetitively. Occassionally, the repetition got a little overbearing. (The questions were pretty lame, in my opinion.) However, he had the chance to speak from the heart a few times, and that's where he towers over anyone else on the public stage in our time, because he's real. Having absolutely no artifice can hurt when he's got to hide what's inside him and can't (such as impatience and frustration). But it's his greatest strength when that kind yet lion heart is on full view.
On substance, Kerry talked a lot, but truly my eyes glazed over much of the time as he went on. In 90 minutes, he went from insisting that the president made a terrible mistake by taking out Saddam, to saying that Saddam was a threat, but that he (Kerry) would have handled it differently. The essense of Kerry's message is that the president hasn't done anything right in nearly four years, and that he (Kerry) could have done and will do everything smarter, better, faster, with more kowtowing to the "international community."
During the same 90 minutes that Kerry slammed the president over and over about not having a coalition in Iraq, he slammed the president for having a coaltion to deal with North Korea. With NK, Kerry wants to have unilateral negotiations with Kim Il Jong. Go figure. And Kerry's approach to Iran is downright terrifying, because he'd give them nuclear materials purportedly for benign uses.
Anyway, "HM," that's a pretty accurate summary of what happened. I can't say who won or lost, because that's not my thing. I can see how people who want to assign a win and a loss could say that Kerry did better than the president in debating skills. For those who respond to smooth style over rough substance, Kerry won. But then, I don't think John Kerry is fit to shine GWB's shoes, so I'm probably not the best person to assess who won or lost.