Yellow Dog

According to post-debate polls, Bush is still winless in the presidential debates.
Gallup: Kerry 47% Bush 45%
ABC: Kerry 44% Bush 41%

From my perspective, Kerry was superb from start to finish.




The top three most most indecipherable responses by Bush:

1. On Iraq... "I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons." (Really? I'll bet our troops sweating it out in their chemical suits were happy that the inspections had worked.)
   
2. On the environment... "What happens in those forests, because of lousy federal policy, is they grow to be -- they are not -- they're not harvested. (Right, they aren't harvested. That's why they're called "forests.")
   
3. On Supreme Court Nominations... "The Constitution of the United States says we're all -- (pause) -- you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America." (I assume he was going with the "All men are created equal" line which is from the Declaration of Independence, not the U.S. Constitution)

It seems Bush is a tad touchy about the mighty Iraq coalition. During one exchange, as described in this cnn article, Bush had a near meltdown:

After Kerry accused him of going alone into Iraq, Bush interrupted the moderator, ABC's Charles Gibson, to demand that Kerry ask the British or Italian prime ministers if their participation was nonexistent.

Here's the video of that exchange.


With reality and the facts being on Kerry's side, Bush doesn't stand a chance in these debates. Of course, Bush doesn't need facts. He just makes stuff up, like when he proudly proclaimed, "Non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending was raising at 15 percent a year when I got into office. And today it's less than 1 percent, because we're working together to try to bring this deficit under control."

Facts:
Nixon/Ford: 6.8% per year
Jimmy Carter: 2.0% per year
Ron Reagan: -1.3% per year
George H.W. Bush: 4.0% per year
Bill Clinton: 2.5% per year
George W. Bush: 8.2% per year

Kerry goes for the sweep in the third and final debate next Wednesday.