TAP's Take

Check out The American Prospect's overnight commentary. Harold Meyerson:

Not a moment too soon, Kerry shucked the Senate-speak, abandoned the adverbs, stopped depending on dependent clauses, and, in plain and forceful English, stated how Bush had put the nation at risk and had no plan whatever to extricate us from Iraq. Nobody had talked this way to Bush -- in public, anyway -- since Bush became president. And Bush did not handle it very well at all.

He blinked. He squirmed. He scowled. He repeated his lines ad nauseam. He embarked on answers in which it was clear his chief hope was that the two-minute limit would soon descend and spare him from the necessity of yet another repetition of his charge that Kerry has mixed messages -- or, as he called them during one particularly vexed reiteration, “mexed missages.”

Garance Franke-Ruta:

After months of being forced to defend himself on unfriendly political terrain, John Kerry last night placed a remarkably petulant George W. Bush on the defensive during their first debate. While both men trotted out many of their favorite lines from their stump speeches, a calm, serious Kerry added new and eye-opening factual information to the picture, displaying a faculty with the details of foreign policy that far outstripped the president’s. Bush repeatedly invoked the broad general principles that have taken on a talismanic quality in his speeches, but the phrases often felt worn and lacking in the fine-grain details or memorable anecdotes that give articulations of such principles heft and power.

Big mess of young people. Specifically, me:

Krauthammer, at least when I’ve seen him, manages to exhibit a certain seriousness of purpose in his demeanor and tone; with Bush, the disconnection from reality seeps from every pore, from every inappropriate pause, from every misplaced emphasis, from every moment of staring blankly into space while his opponent speaks. The easygoing, somewhat charming Bush of the 2000 campaign is gone. So, too, is the moralistic, crusading Bush of the address to Congress after the September 11 attacks. We don’t even get the Bush of the catastrophic 9-11 attacks themselves, where a disoriented president at least seemed genuinely disturbed by the events of the day.

Last night’s Bush looked more like the victim of a psychopharmacological experiment gone awry -- the result of a botched effort to create the speechwriter’s dream candidate, the one who sticks to the professionally written script come what may, an effect achieved only by shutting down the neural pathways that might allow the outside world to impinge upon his psyche. He reminds me of Zack Braff’s character in Garden State, driving off from the gas station with the nozzle still stuck in his tank, presumably spilling fuel everywhere. Except that was funny. It was a gas station in a movie.

Rosenfeld:

Iraq existed in Lehrer’s debate last night in rather the same way that Iraq exists for the president’s re-election campaign: as an abstract measuring stick, a test of resolve and leadership and judgment. Secondarily, it’s a handy pretext by which to expound on a vision of the general foreign-policy principles and international goals one wants to see shape U.S. action in the future. What Iraq was not, under Lehrer’s studiously evenhanded and humble stewardship as moderator, was an urgent, immediate reality, an emergency. It was not a presently unfolding situation on the ground that had to be confronted, and could not be wished away. Iraq was an issue. It wasn’t a fact.

Dubner:

For weeks, some of us at here at The American Prospect have complained that Kerry hadn't settled on a uniform characterization of Bush. Everybody has known for months the lines upon which the Bush-Cheney campaign had chosen to demonize Kerry. (I think it has something to do with "flip-flopping," or, as the dignified statesmen like to call it, "sending mixed messages.") But it wasn't until last night that Kerry showed voters the George W. Bush he wanted them to see: headstrong, irrational, and -- most importantly -- lacking in judgment. Bush the Bullheaded, yes, but more devastatingly, Bush the Blunderful.

McGarvey:

Bush needed all the help he could get in the authoritative department last night. His traditional hunkered stance at the podium left him looking narrow and slight, not thoughtful and intense as was probably intended. And try as he might, Bush cannot wipe his trademark grimace-smirk (“smirmace,” if you will) off his face when someone dares to take him on. As was expected, Bush clung to his talking points and catchphrases, occasionally spitting out his words. Still pushing the Kerry-as-flip-flopper point, Bush made 10 references to the senator’s supposed mixed messages or signals, and closed his remarks on that note. And though Bush has never been quick with facts and figures, he never forgets a name. Tonight he rattled off the names of dignitaries and military widows, even referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin by his first name (twice).

But Bush also stumbled on a couple of words and phrases, referring to the mullahs in Iran as “moo-lahs” and calling the terrorists “a group of folks.” And in a moment of true presidential gravitas, Bush recalled his bafflement at the velocity of the fall of Baghdad. “I mean, we thought we’d whip more of them going in,” he said.

Goldberg:

No one was expecting Lincoln-Douglass redux last night, but when the only real unscripted moment between the two candidates involves banter about the president’s daughters, it ought to signal the disservice done to the public interest by these intense regulations.

The point is -- Kerry wins. And next we get our charismatic guy (Edwards) against their evil troll. And then there's going to be the Kerry-Bush domestic policy debate. Seeing as how Bush couldn't come up with anything new to say about his alleged strength, I have no idea what he'll pull out of his sack for that one.