Official Presidential Debate Reaction Thread

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-10-01 02:46pm

Kerry's basically saying Bush used 9/11 as a pretense to invade Iraq would be something similar to FDR using Pearl Harbor to invade Mexico.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-10-01 02:57pm

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:*stern look* "Let me finish!"

Hilarious.

My friends and family have been saying this all last night. It's hard work.

Oh and I loved Kerry's shot "...he outsourced that, too." Pwned!

He absolutely schooled Bush, although Bush really did the work for him. If you watch the debate on the networks where they show each candidate's responses, Bush comes across even worse, petulant and arrogant with Cheney's crooked sneer.

"I know Saddam Hussein isn't Osama Bin laden!"

"The only thing consistent about my opponent's position is that it's inconsistent. A president needs to be steadfast... [Kerry owns the flip-flop issue and explains how plans need to change in the face of reality]...We'll change our strategies!" (That was the sound of Bush flip-flopping 90 seconds after calling Kerry a flip-flopper. I am embarrassed that this idiot is our president.)

"I don't think Osama bin Laden should make our defense policy!"

And did you all see the WTF? look on Kerry's face?

"What does that have to do with this?"

Fire Fly · Post by **Fire Fly** » 2004-10-01 03:19pm

D'oh...that is what he said. No sleep for 4 days straight can't really be a good thing.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-10-01 05:05pm

I think Letterman hit the nail on the head under the clinton admistration...

sucks to be Saddam, I mean one little scandal, one slip in the polls, and the united states goes out and plays "Kick The Dog"

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-10-01 05:30pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:I think Letterman hit the nail on the head under the clinton admistration...

sucks to be Saddam, I mean one little scandal, one slip in the polls, and the united states goes out and plays "Kick The Dog"

Why does Saddam remind me of the Welshie character from Futurama, with Melllvar being the US president?

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-10-01 06:23pm

Mange the Swede wrote:
Patrick Degan wrote:That wasn't the point —the point was that invading Iraq had as much relevance to the fight against Al-Qaeda as invading Mexico would have had in response to Pearl Harbour.
The analogy was extremely poor, and it had no relevance whatsoever.

The hell it didn't —it sums up exactly how irrelevant Iraq was to the War on Terror.

While Saddam had no confirmed ties with Al-Qaida (or Al-Qaeda as it's often written in English), Saddam Hussein advocated terrorism. He hide Abu Nidal, whose terrorist organization was responsible for several hijackings, a.o. the hijacking of a Pan Am flight in Pakistan 1985 where 22 people died. Abu Nidal was found dead in Baghdad, and some claims that he was murdered by the Iraqi regime because he wasn't willing to train Al-Quaida fighters in Iraq Iraqi state-sponsored terrorism also struck the United Nations, the regime even planned to murder the former chief-weapon inspector, the Swede Rolf Ekéus, by tallium poisoning 1997. The plans were unraveled by an informer.

All of which is stunningly irreleveant to the issue as to whether or not Iraq presented a military threat to the United States or any state in the region in 2002, which it very clearly did not.
No, that's not irrelevant. If that indeed was the case, it shows that Saddam Hussein sponsored terrorism. Militarily, he was no threat at that point. There was no way on Earth that sanctions could be lifted as long as Saddam Hussein was in power (or his sons).

The case for war was based wholly on the "imminent threat" allegedly posed by Saddam Hussein and his Vast Phantom WMD Arsenal™. Bush invoked the spectre of the mushroom cloud while conflating Iraq and 9-11, and Blair made the even more laughable 45-minute-to-launch claim. The terrorism angle was one of the excuses dredged up post-hoc to try to justify the war after the WMD claims started evaporating.

Iraq in 2003 didn't have the capability to do dick. Their entire industrial and technical infrastructure was crumbling to ruin under the sanctions regime, the economy was smashed, one-third of the country was effectively out of the regime's control, and Iraq was unable to rebuild from wartime damage dating to 1991 and its army and airforce —not exactly in the best shape to begin with in 1991— were shells of their former selves. Blueprints and the desire to do a thing are meaningless without the actual capacity to do it.
Which he could have achieved if he had been given the time to do it. As I stated earlier in the post, the sanctions against Iraq could NEVER have been lifted as long as he was the leader of Iraq.

In which case he would NEVER have been given the time to do dick. Saddam's grasp on power was growing increasingly shaky, and he had lost the capacity even to put down an active rebellion in the Kurdish provinces. Time was his enemy, not the world's.

A destabilised Iraq which shows every danger of collapsing into a three-way civil war has not made the world more secure one way or the other and certainly poses a longterm danger to the stability of the Middle East.
I agree. The situation right now is frightening, but I doubt that Kerry can resolve it better than Bush can. The situation will certainly be improved in the future, when all the foreign fighters and Saddam loyalists has become irrelevant. Granted, the UN must be given a larger role, and I am also of the opinion that peace keepers from Muslim countries could be very useful. Now that Syria has closed its border to Iraq, that will also have an effect.
There are some ways to deal with the terrorists, house-to-house searches by Iraqi national guard troops and cerfews in areas where there are unrest could be effective means.

Nice little pile of wishful thinking. Even Colin Powell has been forced to admit that the situation is deterioriating, not improving. And house-to-house searches and curfews aren't going to damp down an insurgency the scale of what's active in-country.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-10-02 12:02am

Patrick Degan wrote:
Mange the Swede wrote:
Patrick Degan wrote:That wasn't the point —the point was that invading Iraq had as much relevance to the fight against Al-Qaeda as invading Mexico would have had in response to Pearl Harbour.
The analogy was extremely poor, and it had no relevance whatsoever.
The hell it didn't —it sums up exactly how irrelevant Iraq was to the War on Terror.

also near historical accuracy for a throw away one liner

you see right after Pearl Harbor our propaganda compared the Japanese to Santa Anna, and Poncho Villa (demonizing mexicans in the process, and there was a massive increase in violence against mexicans even before we started setting up the internment camps for the japanese....

Talon Karrde · Post by **Talon Karrde** » 2004-10-02 12:02am

lol, anyone seen heard this yet? http://www.wspd.com/timages/page/media/kerryvkerry.mp3

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2004-10-02 12:16am

Talon Karrde wrote:lol, anyone seen heard this yet? http://www.wspd.com/timages/page/media/kerryvkerry.mp3

I think Bush'isms are funnier.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-10-02 12:29am

Talon Karrde wrote:lol, anyone seen heard this yet? http://www.wspd.com/timages/page/media/kerryvkerry.mp3

While it's funny and very well edited, and I pretty much agree with the idea that John Kerry has never really had a consistent position on the war, I suspect that it's not particularly honest. My guess is that Kerry was quoted out of context once or twice. Very Mooreish, come to think of it.

Talon Karrde · Post by **Talon Karrde** » 2004-10-02 11:40am

Joe wrote:
Talon Karrde wrote:lol, anyone seen heard this yet? http://www.wspd.com/timages/page/media/kerryvkerry.mp3
While it's funny and very well edited, and I pretty much agree with the idea that John Kerry has never really had a consistent position on the war, I suspect that it's not particularly honest. My guess is that Kerry was quoted out of context once or twice. Very Mooreish, come to think of it.

I don't know that I'd compare it Moore, I think it's intent is more humor than anything.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-10-03 01:22am

I think the Daily Show did a better job about 2 years ago with Gov. Bush debating Pres. Bush about Iraq. But still it's a pretty slick clip.

I, for one, believe Kerry's position on the war is what he says it is. I know that makes me gullible, but it's the exact same thoughts I have. If Sadaam really did have WMD, then we needed to disarm him. No quesion. However, if he doesn't, we have no need to be in there. All the "pro-war" quotes are taken from when Bush was saying "If Sadaam has WMD and is poiting it at the US, what should we do about it?" and everyone said, "well, disarm him." The "anti-war" quotes were taken from when Bush snubbed the UN and went in unilaterally to secure the oil fields before anything WMD-related. This is when Kerry, just like everyone else, said "WTF?!"

Of course he's been playing both sides since Day 1, just to appeal to the other side. But I think that, in the final analysis, Kerry really does dislike what bush ahs done in Iraq. To me, that's what matters.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-10-03 06:36am

Hey, guys! You were all wrong! Kerry lost! Bush won!

See! SEE!

BoredShirtless · Post by **BoredShirtless** » 2004-10-03 08:16am

HemlockGrey wrote:Hey, guys! You were all wrong! Kerry lost! Bush won!

See! SEE!

That's gotta be a gee up...a dating service based on political ideology? Bwahahaha!!

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2004-10-03 08:39am

HemlockGrey wrote:Hey, guys! You were all wrong! Kerry lost! Bush won!

See! SEE!

You know, it's not very convincing when half the Right is trying to spin "Bush won! Really!" and the other half is trying to spin "Yes, Kerry won but it's not that important."

The_Last_Rebel · Post by **The_Last_Rebel** » 2004-10-03 09:58am

I know it's kinda late in the game to be saying this, but yeah, Bush could have done better. They both seemed like they were repeating the same crap over and over again.