A few more thoughts on the debate

We watched some of Saturday Night Live tonight; hosting was Ben Affleck. A funny skit posed Affleck as James Carville as he's advising John Kerry on the campaign. In the bit, they both aknowledged that Kerry had won the debate, but Carville warned him, "that's like Kareem Abdul-Jabaar playing one-on-one with Steven Hawking and winning by 2 points! The man can't talk!" And yes, Kerry has gained in some recent polls, but I would give him the same warning. Everybody already knows Bush isn't an eloquent speaker. His modus operandi has always been to let you think he's just a bubba; it'll work to his advantage most times. (I'm not implying that Bush can speak well when he wants to. No, he just can't do it. Is that too much to ask of a President? You tell me. Read this article from Camille Paglia from 2001.) And, a warning to both candidates: those swing voters who have swayed from Bush to Kerry since the night of the debate will swing and swing again before election day. As I wrote in my last entry, many won't decide until they reach for the lever. Allow to make just one point concerning something Kerry said in the debate that I consider extremely revealing. Kerry noted that, while Bush has been trying to convince other countries to forgo nuclear weapons, he himself has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing a new nuclear bunker buster. Kerry pledged to shut down the program. This is a key point. Kerry believes there's something inherently wrong with America having the biggest bombs. In his world, that somehow equals a moral imbalance. This is an extremely dangerous worldview and quite the opposite is actually true. Through strength and a projection of that strength, we'll find our best chance of a lasting peace. If a rougue regime, in Iran for instance, can develop a bomb, it's our moral duty to take it out. And when Kerry talks about "negotiating" with these types, does anyone still believe this? Negotiating? United Nations? Come back to planet Earth.