The Advocate

Comparative Politics: A Commentary on the Bush-Kerry Debates

Dan Skinner
In the first presidential “debate,” a sleepy and frail George W. Bush predictably charged that John Kerry was a flip-flopper and that he would turn over the defense of the United States to other nations. Of course, John Kerry, a political animal ever aware of the dangers of speaking about multilateralism in an irrationally unilateralist nation, said nothing of the sort. Nevertheless, the Kerry “global test” became the buzzword—the “lock box” of 2004—that propelled the bulk of post-debate media coverage. By the next day, however, most pundits—including many on the Right such as Sean Hannity—as well as polls, conceded that Kerry had won. Some, such as Matt Drudge, began looking into the possibility that Kerry had used a cheat sheet, which would be a clear violation of the Commission on Presidential Debates’ formal rules. Others noted that Kerry’s face looked less jaundiced and botoxed than it had earlier that week. Bush, on the other hand, seemed hardly prepared for the debate and appeared to shrink next to the comparatively towering Kerry. The best characterization came from Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times:

The decision to have the two lecterns be of matching height (50 inches) turned out to work against Mr. Bush. The agreed-upon lectern cut the president mid-chest, and made him look smaller, as if he were in a bunker. He did not extend himself beyond its confines, but instead kept his arms in front of him, barely peeking above the lip of the lectern.

If Mr. Bush looked too testy when his opponent spoke, Mr. Kerry looked a little too engaged. He kept picking up his pen and scribbling notes and smiling to himself, like an overly confident prosecutor in court.

In debate two, which was branded as a so-called “town hall” meeting, a better-rested Bush pounded away at Kerry over the issue of the “global test.” Kerry handled this well, however, explaining the difference between an alliance formed of small, mostly poor nations, and one comprised of nations that can actually shoulder some of the costs of war. Kerry successfully turned the issue of unilateralism into one of strategic wisdom, rather than mere symbolism. In the first debate, Bush had harangued Kerry for forgetting Poland (which contributed about 800 troops to the invasion of Iraq) in his list of Coalition partners. This time, however, Bush’s Poland fetish was undermined by an announcement that, beginning in 2005, Poland would begin pulling out of Iraq. Kerry failed to mention this specifically, which was a pity. But then again, he also failed to mention that the third largest member of the “Coalition of the Willing” was in fact a group of corporations providing paid mercenaries, like a band of hired thugs, for a supposedly national defense initiative.

One of the weirder moments of the second debate was the exchange over the environment. Bush touted himself as “a good steward of the land” who supports something known as “off-road diesel engines,” and who proposed a “healthy forest bill” (which is, in truth, a program that opens old growth forest to loggers). Stranger yet, Bush claimed to have proposed a “hydrogen-generated automobile,” which, as one might imagine, simply doesn’t exist. Kerry, for his part, charged that George W. Bush’s environmental record was marred by corporate interests, noting that he is part owner of a timber company. This suggestion prompted a volatile Bush to fire back: “That’s news to me!” and, in an attempt to make a joke, ask “Wanna buy some wood?” But it turns out that Bush was wrong: the $84 he received in dividends from "LSTF, LLC," a limited-liability company organized "for the purpose of the production of trees for commercial sales" is, by the administration’s own definition, technically small business ownership.

Touché. So, Kerry was right about the wood, but the exchange was at best confusing and at worst a missed opportunity for Kerry to hammer away at a president whose policies have been devastating for the environment. Despite Bush’s stammering and rhetorical tree-hugging, however, Kerry clearly won the moment when he straightforwardly declared that he would be “a president who believes in science,” which, many concluded, was an indication that Kerry believes global warming is real.
Many viewers thought this debate was a tie, but this widespread consensus seemed to be the product of low expectations derived from Bush’s first performance. One right-wing pundit, WABC Radio’s Steve Malzberg, even opined that Bush did better because Arizona is on Central Mountain Time—one hour behind Cleveland where the prior debate took place—and that our intrepid Commander in Chief isn’t used to staying up past nine, when the debates began. One extra hour, it seems, makes all the difference between the complete ignorance or acceptable incoherence of George W. Bush. After the second debate, the blogosphere was rife with investigations into a bulge on Bush’s back that many thought was a radio device used to feed him lines. Others began to suggest that this is why Bush’s speech has been awkward from the beginning of his presidency. Cartoons of “Bush: The Wind-Up Toy” abounded. Still, if Kerry displayed nothing else, the second debate highlighted his consistency and composure, even though the media didn’t seem ready to consider amending its flip-flop charge. In fact, it didn’t even seem to notice.

Everybody was nervous about debate three. A Yankees playoff game pitted the Apollonians against the Dionysians, the girly men against the real men; yet, surprisingly, Americans chose to watch the debate over the game by a ratio of three to one. Many commentators attribute this not to an increased interest in politics, but to a residue of the reality television fad. As one might imagine, political “scientists” are still not sure whether to interpret the public’s interest as a positive development.

But viewers were not disappointed, as this debate was hot: John Kerry made sure that everybody was aware that Dick Cheney’s daughter, Mary, was in fact “a lesbian”; he dutifully recited lines from the Bible, bragged that he had voted for tax cuts over 600 times (even supporting Ronald Reagan!) and that he had consistently voted to increase the military budget. In all three debates, Kerry stole Bush’s show, and with good reason: the American electorate seems to demand this kind of tough talk, and especially from a “liberal senator from Massachusetts” who opts for windsurfing over chopping wood. The whole night was depressing for the Left, not only highlighting the differences between the candidates, but underscoring the Faustian bargain that ousting Bush seems to require. With the media having proven so unwilling to undertake a post-debate fact check, and with politics as being slimy as ever, Kerry’s advisors might have considered encouraging their boss to charge that Bush’s daughters were gay, too. Now that would be the move of a man with gravitas.

These moments, like so many others in the three debates between George W. Bush and John Kerry, are only a smattering of what the American people had to wade through to decide which man would make a better president. According to some polls, as many as 18% of Americans were undecided before the debates. This number had decreased only slightly—if at all—by the close of the third. Samantha Bee of The Daily Show, which offered by far the best post-debate coverage, understandably screamed at a mock panel of undecideds after the first: “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” Pollsters and political “scientists” are also confounded: what do these people need to see or hear, they wonder?

The 2004 presidential debates provided fodder ripe for a study in psychopathic tendencies—not of the candidates themselves, but of an electorate that is so cynical that it considers this kind of milquetoast exchange sufficient for a democratic process. Americans don’t seem to make a connection between the tenor of political discourse and the “greatness” of a country.

Yet, most talking heads agreed at the outset that Kerry’s goal was to prove himself to be a viable Commander in Chief who could defend the nation. There is a general consensus that he in fact accomplished this goal.

Bush, most agreed, needed only to hold his own, avoid major sound bite-friendly gaffes, and appear, well, presidential. The problem is that Bush has never done this to begin with. His image makers have reframed ignorance as “folksiness” and the idea that Bush resembles a “true statesman” is laughable in the light of his alienation of most of the world. Bush’s most masterful accomplishment has been his ability to generate a set of entirely different expectations for himself than Americans use in judging John Kerry. In all three debates, Bush and Kerry were held to qualitatively different standards, which is why it is difficult to know exactly how the party-faithful on both sides interpreted their performances. Kerry, as a result, was clearly restrained by the unfounded assumptions most Americans have about national security, and the possibilities of reforming our political institutions and processes at home. Yet, by jettisoning many of his core beliefs, and appearing calm but firm, Kerry appeared at the end of the debates to be someone that even Americans may be able to recognize is simply the better man for the job.