Post-Debate Analysis
So, the debates are over. Virtually all polls show that Kerry won each of them, the first one convincingly, the others less-so. (Real polls, I’m talking about. Not the astroturfed online insta-polls, where us Bush-haters pretty much pwned, too. Not that that means much.)
The main significance of the debates, I think, is that when you put John Kerry on a stage next to George Bush without a script, there’s really no way to escape the conclusion that Kerry is much more qualified to be president. Those ideologically committed to supporting Bush can refuse to acknowledge that if they want to, but people like them won’t be deciding this election. For the wafflers in the middle who apparently will be deciding it, I think Kerry emerged as the obvious choice.
Last night’s biggest Bush gaffe was his assertion that he’d hadn’t said, six months after 9/11, that he wasn’t concerned about Osama bin Laden. From the good folks at onegoodmove, here’s a clip of Bush’s gaffe, together with video of the original statement: Exaggeration: Not.
Joshua Marshall has this to say about the issue: Now, to follow up.
Not only is the quote accurate. But the broader context is entirely on the mark. This wasn’t some stray comment taken out of context.
Setting the narrow gotcha issue aside, though, there are three reasons why the Democrats can use this effectively against the president.
First, this isn’t some insignifcant matter like whether Dick Cheney ever met John Edwards. This cuts to the essence of what the election is about: terrorism and whether the president kept his eye on the ball.
Second, the president’s honesty is also a central issue. In particular, honesty about terrorism and bin Laden and Saddam. This cuts to the heart of that too: the president not leveling with the public about what’s happened in the war on terror.
Third, as Kevin Drum rightly notes, this is an excuse to play that video clip again and again and again. And for the president that’s not a good clip at all.
Besides the Kevin Drum item linked to by Marshall above, Drum also had this to say in a later posting: The Bush cocoon. Drum asks why Bush walked headlong into the gaffe, when he could easily have ignored or deflected Kerry’s remark.
I suspect the answer lies in the cocoon Bush lives in. Not only has he convinced himself that he never really said that he wasn’t concerned about Osama, but he has no idea that the outside world believes otherwise. He doesn’t realize that not only is his Osama statement well known, it’s actually quite a popular target of mockery. What’s more, nobody on his staff has ever clued him in.
It’s a pretty good metaphor for Bush’s biggest problem: his staff spoon feeds him a rosy view of the outside world and he honestly believes that this rosy world is the real world — and that’s why he makes so many disastrous decisions. After all, you can’t solve real world problems if you refuse to understand the real world in the first place.
Which sums things up nicely. Bush was really cocky in his assertion that Kerry was exaggerating his position. As a commenter to the above Kevin Drum item pointed out, Bush “thought he had really zinged Kerry.” But it was only possible for him to believe that because he — and the people around him — are so focused on re-ordering reality to always put him in the best light.
October 14th, 2004 at 3:12 pm
Maybe it’s as simple as not readily recalling any remark to the contrary. But my theory is that, back in the timeframe that he said this, he was also saying that the US has Osama on the run in that mountain region. That Osama was too busy trying to evade capture or in staying alive to have much time to coordinate any further terrorist attacks on the US. And that the “noose” was tightening around him.
So it’s not that he was saying that he suddenly didn’t care what happens to him, but that he felt the US had minimized his capability to mount any kind of direct threat to the US anymore, due to the pressure being brought to bear on him and his leadership group.
That the way I recall that comment, within the context of what was going on at that time.
October 14th, 2004 at 5:44 pm
That might be a valid defense for the statement except that later history showed that either there was no noose or it was made of dental floss.
October 14th, 2004 at 6:18 pm
Regardless of what has happened since then, the point is that that was the line of thought Bush was communicating concerning Osama at that time.
October 14th, 2004 at 9:26 pm
This guy masterminded killing 3,000 Americans and set off a global war, and the President, the terror warrior, isn’t too concerned about him? Six months after 9/11? Six months after declaring he must be found dead or alive? Come on.
The fact is that by the time of that quote, Bush had moved on in his mind to Iraq, a place with no weapons and no terrorists. That’s why Bush wasn’t concerned – not because Osama was in a box (snicker). He took his eye off the ball.
Even now that all the administration’s lies have fallen apart, just about the same number still support Bush that did before the war. I think it’s like joining a fraternity. They’ve gone through so much with him, it would be too painful now to admit that the whole thing was a horrible mistake. So they hold on. And we all pay the price for it.