Master Debaters

A friend I work with at the diamond mines taped last week's Presidential Debate and burned it onto a CD-R as one big .avi file. Consequently, the soundtrack is a little off. It's almost like a bad kung fu movie. I had to turn the video off and just listen. What do I need to look at either of their mugs for, anyway?

I almost didn't bother with it at all after reading this commentary from the Tavis Smiley Show:

Connie Rice: Top 10 Secrets They Don't Want You to Know About the Debates

The Tavis Smiley Show, September 29, 2004 · After weeks of political wrangling, Sen. John Kerry and President Bush will square off for the first of three key presidential debates. Both camps have agreed to an elaborate, 32-page contract that spells out everything from the size of the dressing rooms to permitted camera angles.

Of particular interest...

(7.) The secretly negotiated debate contract bars Kerry and Bush from any and all other debates for the entire campaign.

"Under what I call the Debate Suppression and Monopolization Clause of the contract, it is illegal for the candidates to debate each other anywhere else during the campaign," Rice says. "We need a new criminal law for reckless endangerment of democracy."

I made it all the way through the thing, but my mind tended to close itself down (probably for the sake of mental self-preservation). I'll need to give it another once over, but my impressions so far about each candidate's points...

• Yes, there in fact is a coalition in Iraq. But, who cares when we're 90% of it and that we're
  suffering 90% of the cost?
  
• There's no way Bush can look the American people in the eye and say, "I did everything I could, first, before going to war.
  
• Dubya -- if you want to convince who have more brain cells than you about Kerry's flip-flopping, you're going to have to do more than repeat the phrase "He changes his position."
  
• Sorry, Johnny -- Dubya harping on your flip-flopping resonates with people for a reason. You've got to come up with something better than "No, I don't."