Friday, October 01, 2004

The Debate

Yep, I watched the Presidential debate tonight. No I didn't watch it all the way through. I watched forty-five minutes of it. (Did it go an hour or two?) I'm sad to say that I didn't learn an awful lot from it. No I'll rephrase that. I didn't learn as much as I had hoped I would. But here is the basic rundown of the debate:
Kerry believes that the war in Iraq is not a just cause and should not have been started. He does however believe in getting our troops home as soon as possible and in giving them the supplies they need. (Ironic.)
Bush believes that invading Iraq was a good choice. He believes America needs to have a strong, unwavering stance against terrorism and to root it out wherever it may be.

Now here is what I learned. Kerry focuses on the past. He kept on reiterating that we should have entered Iraq. He didn't focus on the now. And that is that we are in Iraq... saying again and again that we shouldn't be there won't change that we are. He also stated that by voting against giving our troops the needed money for supplies he was in actuality voting against invading Iraq. That seems a little convoluted.

Bush is committed to this war on terrorism. He believes that removing Saddam Hussein has made the world a better place. He doesn't like sending troops into harms way, but there are causes that justify the loss. It seems that Bush does not want to rely on foreign intervention or help to achieve the goals he has set out. He will go to them the first time, but after that he will take matters into his own hands.

I could go on and on about their motives and details I saw in the debate, but I'll say a little bit about how they spoke in the debate. Kerry is a polished speaker. Bush was a little slower and not as smooth. But Kerry is a senator and I think that oration and speech giving comes with the territory. But it seemed that Kerry's words were made to tug on heart strings and persuade the audience to his side. Bush seemed to be more sincere. Time will tell if he is right or wrong. But you can tell by the way he speaks that believes he is right.

What are you thoughts on the debate?

1 comment:

Madam_Author said...

Well, I was taking a test so I couldn't watch the debate so I listened to the entire thing today online. Kerry was the better speaker of the two, but since his words kept contradicting themselves, it doesn't matter to me how well he said it. Anyway, I posted my initial reaction on my blog. I'll have to watch the other two debates.