Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Petulant And Out Of Touch

The DNC has this video up that’s quite amusing and quite revealing. Bush looks petulant, immature, arrogant, out of touch, unfocused and annoyed. We’ll have to wait for Saturday Night Live and Jay Leno to tell us whether this will take on a life of its own, but he certainly didn’t look presidential in any way shape or form with his puerile fidgeting.

Blitzer appeared to be shocked at that suggestion when it was brought up this morning, however, because the president simply can’t look unpresidential in his book. Sorry, Wolfie, the president is routinely not only unpresidential he is an embarrassment. Here’s some footage (real player) of him spitting out a wad of gum before he signed a major treaty with Russia back in 2002.

We know that Junior has always believed that a dictatorship would be easier as long as he’s the dictator, but that’s too bad. It’s a shame that a president has to go through all this election unpleasantness, but it’s part of the “hard work” of democracy. His highness behaved last night as if he shouldn’t have to stand on the same stage and debate a man who he believes is his lesser.

He’s quite the regular guy, our ill-mannered boy King.

A Tie?

It appears to me as I’m watching the gasbags this morning that there is consensus emerging that the debate was a tie but that Kerry helped himself by energizing the Democratic base that pretty much hates him.

If anyone feels like writing a letter or making a call and reminding the networks that last night they clearly believed that Kerry won, as did most of the editorial boards and polls, here’s the info.

The following links are to articles and transcripts of the post debate analysis:

Larry King Live Post Debate Spin

MSNBC – Kerry, a clear winner

Russert

PBS-Shields and Brooks

ABC’s The Note (calling it a tie)

CNN Post Debate Analysis

CBS

Contact Information:

ABC News

www.abcnews.com

47 W. 66th St

New York, NY 10023

Phone: (212) 456-7477, 456-3796

Fax: (212) 456-4866, 456-2795

World News Tonight with Peter Jennings

Phone: (212) 456-4040

peterjennings@worldnewstonight.abcnews.com

Fax: (212) 456-2771

CBS News

www.cbsnews.com

542 W. 57th St.

New York, NY 10019

News Desk:

Phone: (212) 975-4321, 975-3691

Fax: (212) 975-1893

CNN

www.cnn.com

1 CNN Center

POB 105366

Atlanta, GA 30348

Phone: (404) 827-1500

Fax: (404) 827-1593, (404) 827-1784

Fox News

www.foxnews.com

Speakout@foxnews.com

Viewerservices@foxnews.com

1211 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Phone: (212) 301-3000

Fax: (212) 301-4224

MSNBC

www.msnbc.com

world@msnbc.com

One MSNBC Plaza

Secaucus, NJ 07094

Phone: (201) 583-5000

Fax: (201) 583-5453

NBC News

www.nbc.com

30 Rockefeller Plaza

New York, NY 10112

Phone: (212) 664-5900

Fax: (212) 664-2914

NPR

www.npr.org

635 Mass Ave

Washington, DC 20001

Phone: (202) 414-2323

Fax: (202) 414-3324

PBS

www.pbs.org

PO BOX 50880

Washington, DC 20091

Phone: (800) 356-2626

Never Mind

As I watch Schneider, Blitzer and Rothenberg do the post mortem of the debate this morning, I can’t help but laugh at the fact that today they all seem to believe that the debates don’t really mean much in the long run and that nothing really changes because of just one performance no matter how much the public believes one or the other won or lost.

Gosh. It seems like just yesterday that they were saying that last night’s debate was make or break for John Kerry and that if he didn’t pull it off his campaign was in deep deep trouble. Today, all the polls and editorial pages are saying he won. But, it doesn’t really matter.

Rothenberg did allow that Kerry might have helped himself with his base which Blitzer said had been in terrible malaise. So, perhaps winning the debate by two to one may have helped poor old Kerry just a little bit. Maybe.

They also discussed how often the first impressions of who won a debate later change “once people have a few days to think about it” and then named a list of first debate winners — Mondale, Dukakis, Perot and Gore — who went on to lose the election.

I came away with the clear impression that winning the first debate is the kiss of death.

Won On A Hemmer

The General finds that CNN’s Bill Hemmer had a GOP ringer in his group of “undecided’s”

Early in the program, Mr. Hemmer interviewed three undecided Florida voters about their hopes for last night’s debate. The fact that at least two of the three seemed to be fairly intelligent made me wonder just how undecided they really were–after all, you’d have to be a complete idiot to be unable to choose between one of the candidates by now.

I found it more than a bit curious that one of undecideds, Edward Martos, is a graduate student in public administration at the University of Miami. Public administration? You’d think that he’d certainly be a bit more informed about politics and public policy that the average guy. How could he still be undecided?

After a little googling, I learned that Mr. Martos seems to be leading a double life. While claiming to be the politically independent president of a non-partisan campus group called the Council for Democracy, he is also very involved with the College Republicans, having served on committees to draft the UMCR constitution and organize a veterans memorial committee. He has also served as the Assistant Editor in Chief for the CR newsletter, Eye On Politics.

“Perhaps,” I thought, “there are two Edward Martoses attending UM,” but then I learned that the College Republican Edward Martos promoted Council for Democracy events at College Republican meetings. Certainly, it’s the same guy.

The picture sealed it for me. The College Republican Edward Martos is the guy I saw on CNN. He’s supposed to be on again this morning. Watch it and see for yourself.

Here’s the CNN form to make comments to Bill Hemmer.

Get Ready

Scarborough is saying that the Bush campaign is going to put up an ad showing that Kerry flip flopped in the debates tonight on building alliances (something to do with Australia) and Matthews was excited at the prospect.

Tomorrow is where the action is folks. Tonight, the consensus is that Kerry won the debate and he did. Tomorrow, the push back begins.

Get your phone numbers in hand. Get ready to write e-mails. They will not go down without a fight. We will have to fight them back with their own words.

I will post tonight’s various transcripts of the immediate responses tomorrow and we should be prepared to shove the mediawhores’ impressions down their own throats.

Tomorrow is the day in which we will crystalize Kerry’s win in this debate. Everybody needs to help. I’ll have all the contact info for you — all you need to do is write some e-mails and make a few phone calls. The campaign could be seriously helped by this effort. Let’s do it.

Constriction

Martini Republic captures the meme:

As John Kerry elucidated on Administration error after Administration error on the war in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, George W. Bush repeated meaningless mantras wholly composed of his own rectitude, not so much in debate, nor even in defense, but as a refrain a child hums when scared of thunder.

Kerry’s demeanor was the demeanor of someone the public can trust, and he scarcely seemed the flipflopper the Bush campaign presents him as; the President’s demeanor, conversely, could only be termed as trustworthy by the most partisan Republicans. Kerry delivered with honesty, smoothness and strength; the President, conversely, stumbled many times–once, amazingly, saying that our troops were fighting “vociferously”, another time calling the Senator “Bush” (?), was full of blinks and stammers, and began, probably to the horror of Karl Rove, explaining himself. Three times he asked for more time from the moderator to clarify not a Kerry charge but his own position.

Being resolutely wrong is hard to defend.

LOSER

Spinning Like Tops

Kondrake just said that Kerry looked like a commander in chief.

Barnes feels that Kerry helped himself with his base.

Kristol said that this race now a real race.

Brokaw said that Kerry renergized the base and gave undecided voters a good reason to vote for him.

Russert said John Kerry was the candidate that Democrats thought they were nominating in Iowa.

Matthews said Bush elected to recieve instead of taking it to his opponent.

Winner

We just saw the next president of the United States and his name isn’t George W. Bush.

George W. Bush behaved like a petulant child. He smirked, he rolled his eyes and he behaved very immaturely. His bearing was not presidential. Kerry didn’t lose his cool. He stayed on message. He looked like a president.

John Kerry won this debate folks, because he was right on substance and he was right in attitude. Even the mediawhores are taking Bush to task.

Scarborough on MSNBC said it was Kerry’s best showing in a debate ever.

Andrea Mitchell said that Bush misbehaved with his smirking and annoyance.

I’m going back to the spin room. I’ll be back in a minute.

Loose Nukes

Prior to 9/11, the Bush administration sought to slash funding for the Nunn-Lugar initiative, calling it a waste of money. Since 9/11, the administration has prudently reversed that posture, but despite his claim of a close personal relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin, it’s hard to find any evidence that Bush has made nuclear threat reduction a particularly high priority in U.S.-Russia relations. After the last Bush-Putin summit, the subject wasn’t even mentioned in the two leaders’ public declarations. Meanwhile, the administration’s vaunted homeland security effort has placed an equally low priority on ensuring systematic inspection of cargos entering our country via sea, land, or air for nuclear materials.

As it happens, Bush’s rival, Sen. John Kerry, who has a strong record on proliferation issues, has made aggressive international action on nuclear nonproliferation the centerpiece of his plan for a new collective security system to meet 21st century threats to America and world peace and order. Aside from promising to make the “loose nuke” threat in the former Soviet Union the top item on the agenda in every discussion with Russia, Kerry has called for repealing the loophole in international nonproliferation treaties that allows countries to obtain and process nuclear materials for “peaceful energy uses.” That’s the guise under which North Korea has created its nuclear weapons program, and the excuse Iran is using to explain its equally aggressive drive to obtain nuclear materials and build enrichment and reprocessing plants. Kerry wants to offer such states and others a simple deal: We will give you the nuclear fuel you need for energy use so long as you agree to let us recapture the spent fuel so it cannot be redirected to a secret weapons program. He has also called for steps to make prevention of nuclear terrorism a central preoccupation of every federal agency involved in national security or international diplomacy.

We Are Bogged Down In Iraq

…and any sentient person knows it. He took the pressure off of al Queda and let bin Laden escape in Tora Bora.

This is indisputable. Iraq was not an imminent danger, but al Qaeda was. Bush took his eye off the ball because a bunch of starry eyed neocons were looking for an excuse to take out their old, dotty nemesis Saddam Hussein.

It is indisputable that the post war planning for Iraq was left in the hand of a group of nepostic know-bothings like Ari Fleisher’s brother and people are now dying. On average, U.S. forces are now being attacked well over 60 times per day. This is a 20% increase from the three months before the transfer of sovereignty.

Bush keeps saying that changing position on Iraq is a sign of weakness. But, anyone can understand that when things are hurtling out of control you should change direction. Bush is incapable of doing this because he has staked his presidency on a war he wanted to fight instead of the war we needed to fight.