Debate Stuffs and Random Musings
Oct. 1st, 2004 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenI think I went into the debates expecting the worst. George Bush has an alarming talent for cutting through arguments that are sound and logical with well-placed but uninformative quips. Kerry has a tendency to ramble on, which is an immediate turn-off for a watching audience. Bush's down-home boy style jives better, and, because of his ineptitude with the English language, he gets a bye for any debate in which he only slightly murders his native tongue. If he does better than that, he's won. So, naturally, I expected bad things.
I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps my low expectations of Kerry helped the way low-balling Bush won him the debates in 2000. Kerry was clear, concise, and cutting. I was amazed. His intelligence finally showed its true brilliance in the way he could take the bland "I'm right, you're wrong!" remarks from Dubya and turn them into sharp rebuttals. He came across as a stronger figure for me, and that's saying a lot as I already rather like him. If he can turn up the wattage enough to re-impress a strong liberal like myself, imagine what he did to those who still think like the President, that he's wishy-washy. He was forceful but not belligerant like Bush. "You can be certain and be wrong," Kerry said, something all of us liberals have been arguing forever. Certainty in the wrong direction is worse than flexibility in the long run, whether it sells or not. Speaking of flexibility, Kerry finally shook some of the problems he had with the war, dodging the critiques and even the words "flip-fop" when he clarified his position. Didn't take him a long rambling paragraph, just a few well-formed sentences to convey to people who see his 'ambivalent' voting as weakness that he voted as he saw was necessary, and now realizes there were mistakes. And, of course, who was to blame for those mistakes?
This could be another of my liberal rants about the President's war policy, but I want to focus now on what people really take away from the debate. Not just the comments that Bush made that were wildly inaccurate (or better still, his comment about "How's Kerry gonna pay for this stuff? There's a budget gap!" when he's responsible for said lack of money...), but the stuff that really impresses people and has ever since JFK looked smooth and Nixon sweated it out: appearances. It's all about appearances. There's the smile and the handshake, standard, at the beginning and the end, but I noticed at the end that Kerry lingered a bit--I had heard he planned to use his height advantage over Bush, and in that extended moment, you could see he dwarfed Bush. There was the women coming on, and, cunningly, Bush had his daughters up with him beyond his wife, and Laura took pains to make some comment about Teresa's outfit (probably a cute joke about how they looked like they'd both worn the same thing, practically).
Then there was the debate itself. In terms of appearance, Bush flubbed it, and he flubbed it badly. I know a lot of people warm to his good-old-boy approach, with his constant smirking and ubiquitous look of imminent laughter. People love a candidate who smiles, this is true. I'm no expert on body language, this is equally true. Still, I would say no amount of self-amusement would have saved Bush from the other gaffs he made. Whenever the cameras and attention weren't focused on him (aka when Kerry spoke), Bush pulled so many mugs you would have thought he was back in grade school mimicking the teacher behind his back. Bush scowled, frowned, tilted his head down and to the side in the recognizable petulant gesture of pissy teenagers everywhere (and here I feel I am on firmer ground--I have two teenage sisters right now). He shifted a lot, leaned far forward on the lectern--and while that may work for a zealous minister in church (which after reading the article Ben posted yesterday I'm sure Bush thinks he is), he just looked like he was straining to be seen over the damn thing or maybe to be heard. He took very few notes, though I suppose his spinners will say he was good enough firing off responses attacking things Kerry said from memory not to need them. He requested more rebuttals to rebuttals to have the last word, which, though it allows him to say more per round, makes him look weaker by making him seem to need that extra time whereas Kerry did not. Bush also broke with the agreed protocol and responded directly to a rhetorical question of Kerry's without appealing first to the moderator. It sounded like he was exasperated--which I'm sure he was but his spinners will say was exasperation with the wrong-ness of Kerry and not what we all saw which was his frustration with Kerry's cool head and scathingly accurate barbs.
Kerry, on the other hand, was masterful. Well and truly. He kept himself from being too loquacious, held himself in check despite the President tripping all over himself to keep from outright yelling back at Kerry. Kerry took notes. From the first time the President opened his mouth to the last time before summations, Kerry was at him, attentively heeding Bush's words and then throwing them back where allowed--and thanks to the many extensions Bush demanded, he got plenty of opportunities. It was laughable when Bush finally picked up his pen and later managed to quote Kerry once--once!!--in his rebuttal. Kerry quoted the President nearly every round. And savaged his nice-sounding lies which have protected him far too long. I can't wait till Kerry can turn his new-found talent for verbal skewering onto domestic issues where the President is even less strong than he is on Iraq but is still buffeted by programs that sound good but fail to pass logical muster ('ownership society,' 'compassionate conservatism,' you name it, I want it sunk). Kerry proved his worth and his resolve, that he is strong, strong enough to make this good-old-boy sweat and act up like the spoiled brat he is. And he never lost his cool, kept on track and picked up and assimilated the new targets Bush provided him flawlessly.
Neither candidate was perfect, though Kerry did do spectacularly well. Kerry stumbled a few times, reaching back a few words to restart his train of thought, but no more than a few words, an understandable amount for any speaker. I think Bush really blundered when he left those long pauses punctuated by nothing more than his stupid half grin. There was one that was especially long and for a moment he looked like he had frozen up entirely. It was a heartbeat past 'acceptable moment to recollect' and into 'he has no idea how to begin' territory. The smile seems to save him from a lot of criticism, so he filled that overlong pause with it. Kerry never had stop like that or struggle. He was cool and collected, reserved but not removed like, say, Al Gore. He stood back from the podium, but he didn't lecture. Bush leaned all over his pulpit like he'd suddenly remembered right before the debate how fun the good old days had been what with all that alky-hol.
Plus, as my sister said, Kerry was wearing the 'power tie.' She meant the red one. It's supposed to convey trustworthiness better. I wonder if they worked that out in advance. Probably, seeing as how that's not really new information. You'd think they'd both try anything for the edge. Who knows? Bring on the next debate, I say! Let's see what the ties are doing then!
Random Things in My life:
1) It is the funniest thing in the world to play "Which Gargoyle wears which Star Trek uniform?" when watching Star Trek: First Contact and Gargoyles late, late at night. The running tally so far of ones I'm pretty sure of: Xanatos=Riker, Demona=Troy, Coldstone=Worf, and, okay, this might not be right, but Puck really does sound a lot like the guy who plays Data. Did I miss anyone? (note: Ben confirmed the Puck-Data thing for me, so go me!) It's all so incredibly disorienting to go back and forth between the two and remember that the good guys can be bad guys...and vice versa...
2) I had a disturbing moment where, for the first time in my life, I was attracted to a person in a Star Trek movie. Towards the end of First Contact, in the scene where Data is in the Borg alcove, he's got part of his face and hair replaced with human skin (versus whatever it is he's supposed to have covering his head as an android). It was so weird, but in that one shot, I was horribly attracted to Brent Spiner. It didn't last more than a second, and the moment he started talking again, I regretted it. Data's never been attractive--the actor looks worse for the makeup and the ten-fifteen years he's been doing that character--but with part of the makeup removed, his wrinkles are less obvious and not enough of the makeup is removed to make him look like his natural self to be a turn off. Sigh, how low I have sunk. Couldn't it have been Jonathan Frakes? Isn't he the one guilty pleasure Star Trek guy that people think it's acceptable to have an attraction to?
3) I now can cook something else: chicken cutlets and (sort of) Lisa's potatoes. She'll be thrilled when she hears that, upon making them, I thought, "These just aren't the same as hers," which is exactly how she reacts to any and all meals she cooks that she learned from her mother.
4) My project for my sister's wedding is coming along. I need to get more sleep and work on it less, but hey, it's so tempting because it means I'll be done with the stupid pink part soon! Well, on the skirt at least...
5) Never go shopping with me under any circumstances unless I am VERY CLEAR on what I'm shopping for. As in I know specifically which kind of what thing I'm buying. I subjected Liz C to a trip to the craft store in Scarsdale and bought...tah-dah! NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! STUPID! YOU'RE SO STUPID! On the other hand, we did find a cross-stitch pattern with a rooster wearing a vest in blue with a star on it and a flag in the background and the words "Let freedom Ring!" I saw it, died inside, held it together outside to show Liz, then we both died. It was that tacky and stupid and WTF, mate?-ish. Roosters are apparently very patriotic as there were more variations on that theme from the same designer.
6) My sisters are the biggest sinkholes for money ever. My dad left us $200. I have $50 left today, and it technically belongs to me as I took Devin to the grocery store and had to spend my own money to afford all we got. I already charged my weekly train pass, too. I'll probably have to charge gas. But the expenses...it's crazy! I can't even keep track. We spent $15 for pizza on Monday, $23 for BK on Tuesday, $75 for groceries Wednesday, and I gave them each ~$10 for lunch for a few days. Drew took $20 for gas from me last night, and I had to leave another $22 for her volleyball pictures...sheesh. I can see why mom is nuts when she talks about how much money they drain from her wallet. I can almost believe that it was necessary to institute allowances as a protective measure--that way they have the allowance and that's it, no more handouts from mom.
I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps my low expectations of Kerry helped the way low-balling Bush won him the debates in 2000. Kerry was clear, concise, and cutting. I was amazed. His intelligence finally showed its true brilliance in the way he could take the bland "I'm right, you're wrong!" remarks from Dubya and turn them into sharp rebuttals. He came across as a stronger figure for me, and that's saying a lot as I already rather like him. If he can turn up the wattage enough to re-impress a strong liberal like myself, imagine what he did to those who still think like the President, that he's wishy-washy. He was forceful but not belligerant like Bush. "You can be certain and be wrong," Kerry said, something all of us liberals have been arguing forever. Certainty in the wrong direction is worse than flexibility in the long run, whether it sells or not. Speaking of flexibility, Kerry finally shook some of the problems he had with the war, dodging the critiques and even the words "flip-fop" when he clarified his position. Didn't take him a long rambling paragraph, just a few well-formed sentences to convey to people who see his 'ambivalent' voting as weakness that he voted as he saw was necessary, and now realizes there were mistakes. And, of course, who was to blame for those mistakes?
This could be another of my liberal rants about the President's war policy, but I want to focus now on what people really take away from the debate. Not just the comments that Bush made that were wildly inaccurate (or better still, his comment about "How's Kerry gonna pay for this stuff? There's a budget gap!" when he's responsible for said lack of money...), but the stuff that really impresses people and has ever since JFK looked smooth and Nixon sweated it out: appearances. It's all about appearances. There's the smile and the handshake, standard, at the beginning and the end, but I noticed at the end that Kerry lingered a bit--I had heard he planned to use his height advantage over Bush, and in that extended moment, you could see he dwarfed Bush. There was the women coming on, and, cunningly, Bush had his daughters up with him beyond his wife, and Laura took pains to make some comment about Teresa's outfit (probably a cute joke about how they looked like they'd both worn the same thing, practically).
Then there was the debate itself. In terms of appearance, Bush flubbed it, and he flubbed it badly. I know a lot of people warm to his good-old-boy approach, with his constant smirking and ubiquitous look of imminent laughter. People love a candidate who smiles, this is true. I'm no expert on body language, this is equally true. Still, I would say no amount of self-amusement would have saved Bush from the other gaffs he made. Whenever the cameras and attention weren't focused on him (aka when Kerry spoke), Bush pulled so many mugs you would have thought he was back in grade school mimicking the teacher behind his back. Bush scowled, frowned, tilted his head down and to the side in the recognizable petulant gesture of pissy teenagers everywhere (and here I feel I am on firmer ground--I have two teenage sisters right now). He shifted a lot, leaned far forward on the lectern--and while that may work for a zealous minister in church (which after reading the article Ben posted yesterday I'm sure Bush thinks he is), he just looked like he was straining to be seen over the damn thing or maybe to be heard. He took very few notes, though I suppose his spinners will say he was good enough firing off responses attacking things Kerry said from memory not to need them. He requested more rebuttals to rebuttals to have the last word, which, though it allows him to say more per round, makes him look weaker by making him seem to need that extra time whereas Kerry did not. Bush also broke with the agreed protocol and responded directly to a rhetorical question of Kerry's without appealing first to the moderator. It sounded like he was exasperated--which I'm sure he was but his spinners will say was exasperation with the wrong-ness of Kerry and not what we all saw which was his frustration with Kerry's cool head and scathingly accurate barbs.
Kerry, on the other hand, was masterful. Well and truly. He kept himself from being too loquacious, held himself in check despite the President tripping all over himself to keep from outright yelling back at Kerry. Kerry took notes. From the first time the President opened his mouth to the last time before summations, Kerry was at him, attentively heeding Bush's words and then throwing them back where allowed--and thanks to the many extensions Bush demanded, he got plenty of opportunities. It was laughable when Bush finally picked up his pen and later managed to quote Kerry once--once!!--in his rebuttal. Kerry quoted the President nearly every round. And savaged his nice-sounding lies which have protected him far too long. I can't wait till Kerry can turn his new-found talent for verbal skewering onto domestic issues where the President is even less strong than he is on Iraq but is still buffeted by programs that sound good but fail to pass logical muster ('ownership society,' 'compassionate conservatism,' you name it, I want it sunk). Kerry proved his worth and his resolve, that he is strong, strong enough to make this good-old-boy sweat and act up like the spoiled brat he is. And he never lost his cool, kept on track and picked up and assimilated the new targets Bush provided him flawlessly.
Neither candidate was perfect, though Kerry did do spectacularly well. Kerry stumbled a few times, reaching back a few words to restart his train of thought, but no more than a few words, an understandable amount for any speaker. I think Bush really blundered when he left those long pauses punctuated by nothing more than his stupid half grin. There was one that was especially long and for a moment he looked like he had frozen up entirely. It was a heartbeat past 'acceptable moment to recollect' and into 'he has no idea how to begin' territory. The smile seems to save him from a lot of criticism, so he filled that overlong pause with it. Kerry never had stop like that or struggle. He was cool and collected, reserved but not removed like, say, Al Gore. He stood back from the podium, but he didn't lecture. Bush leaned all over his pulpit like he'd suddenly remembered right before the debate how fun the good old days had been what with all that alky-hol.
Plus, as my sister said, Kerry was wearing the 'power tie.' She meant the red one. It's supposed to convey trustworthiness better. I wonder if they worked that out in advance. Probably, seeing as how that's not really new information. You'd think they'd both try anything for the edge. Who knows? Bring on the next debate, I say! Let's see what the ties are doing then!
Random Things in My life:
1) It is the funniest thing in the world to play "Which Gargoyle wears which Star Trek uniform?" when watching Star Trek: First Contact and Gargoyles late, late at night. The running tally so far of ones I'm pretty sure of: Xanatos=Riker, Demona=Troy, Coldstone=Worf, and, okay, this might not be right, but Puck really does sound a lot like the guy who plays Data. Did I miss anyone? (note: Ben confirmed the Puck-Data thing for me, so go me!) It's all so incredibly disorienting to go back and forth between the two and remember that the good guys can be bad guys...and vice versa...
2) I had a disturbing moment where, for the first time in my life, I was attracted to a person in a Star Trek movie. Towards the end of First Contact, in the scene where Data is in the Borg alcove, he's got part of his face and hair replaced with human skin (versus whatever it is he's supposed to have covering his head as an android). It was so weird, but in that one shot, I was horribly attracted to Brent Spiner. It didn't last more than a second, and the moment he started talking again, I regretted it. Data's never been attractive--the actor looks worse for the makeup and the ten-fifteen years he's been doing that character--but with part of the makeup removed, his wrinkles are less obvious and not enough of the makeup is removed to make him look like his natural self to be a turn off. Sigh, how low I have sunk. Couldn't it have been Jonathan Frakes? Isn't he the one guilty pleasure Star Trek guy that people think it's acceptable to have an attraction to?
3) I now can cook something else: chicken cutlets and (sort of) Lisa's potatoes. She'll be thrilled when she hears that, upon making them, I thought, "These just aren't the same as hers," which is exactly how she reacts to any and all meals she cooks that she learned from her mother.
4) My project for my sister's wedding is coming along. I need to get more sleep and work on it less, but hey, it's so tempting because it means I'll be done with the stupid pink part soon! Well, on the skirt at least...
5) Never go shopping with me under any circumstances unless I am VERY CLEAR on what I'm shopping for. As in I know specifically which kind of what thing I'm buying. I subjected Liz C to a trip to the craft store in Scarsdale and bought...tah-dah! NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! STUPID! YOU'RE SO STUPID! On the other hand, we did find a cross-stitch pattern with a rooster wearing a vest in blue with a star on it and a flag in the background and the words "Let freedom Ring!" I saw it, died inside, held it together outside to show Liz, then we both died. It was that tacky and stupid and WTF, mate?-ish. Roosters are apparently very patriotic as there were more variations on that theme from the same designer.
6) My sisters are the biggest sinkholes for money ever. My dad left us $200. I have $50 left today, and it technically belongs to me as I took Devin to the grocery store and had to spend my own money to afford all we got. I already charged my weekly train pass, too. I'll probably have to charge gas. But the expenses...it's crazy! I can't even keep track. We spent $15 for pizza on Monday, $23 for BK on Tuesday, $75 for groceries Wednesday, and I gave them each ~$10 for lunch for a few days. Drew took $20 for gas from me last night, and I had to leave another $22 for her volleyball pictures...sheesh. I can see why mom is nuts when she talks about how much money they drain from her wallet. I can almost believe that it was necessary to institute allowances as a protective measure--that way they have the allowance and that's it, no more handouts from mom.
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Date: 2004-10-01 02:10 pm (UTC)Have you ever seen the crossstich pattern I've been working on for forever and a half?
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Date: 2004-10-01 08:04 pm (UTC)Yay stitching solidarity. I'll have to link to the one I'm working on. It's Dimension Gold Collection, so that's code for IT WILL NEVER BE DONE.