Seeing is not always believing
After watching the debate last night, and then getting a good nights sleep, I read the transcript from the debate. What a difference a day makes!
Actually, it was not the light of day that made me sit up and take notice, but the actual dearth of substantive answers John Kerry gave! During the debate, this was not always evident as he is a very glib and well spoken individual. But on reading the transcript, 2 things became obvious, that while I noticed during the debate, were magnified by the transcript.
The first thing that was very apparent was that Kerry had to clarify about 20% of his answers before answering the question at hand! I did not note Bush doing that at all.
This does not bode well for someone who is supposed to be commander in chief. While some will lay the blame on that to Kerry's superior intellect, and of course then our inferior one, I take it more as a person who cant make up his mind and stick with it.
The second glaring difference was the responsiveness to the questions. Kerry did not respond to about 50% of the questions, while Bush did not respond to about 20%.
That is merely an indication of both being politicians and not wanting to answer hard questions that they know to be unfavorable. And looking at each's past voting record it is clear that Kerry is trying to hide his more than Bush is trying to hide.
So who won the debate? While my wife cannot stand Bush, and she clearly saw Kerry a winner last night, I thought both held their own, with perhaps a small advantage to Bush (only on the level of confidence). However, after reading it today, it is clear that Bush won going away.
I know the day after does not matter much to the intended audience of the debates, but for those truly wanting a good objective of the debates, reading the transcripts would give them a lot more confidence in Bush than in Kerry.