Presidential Debate, Round One – Bush Wins

Last Thursday's first debate of the 2004 presidential election definitely had something for everyone. President Bush took on John Kerry in a 90-minute battle royale grudge match of epic proportions. Many points were brought up by both candidates, some good and some bad, but in the end, one of the two men clearly emerged victorious: President Bush.

As much as the Democrats hate to admit it, their candidate was all over the place. Kerry is a much better speaker than President Bush, but one must take into account what he is actually saying, rather than how he said it. Bush remained on target†and answered the questions truthfully, but more importantly, he clearly pointed out why he believes he should serve a second term. Kerry threw around a lot of ideas and made some very sound points, but just how viable are his plans and can they actually be executed?

One such time was when the moderator, PBS's Jim Lehrer, asked Kerry to provide examples of how President Bush has not told the truth about Iraq. Kerry answered, throwing in various examples, among them being that Bush said he would "exhaust the remedies of the United Nations," and that he did not go to war as a "last resort" as he said he would. What is so ponderous about this response is that at the time Kerry agreed with Bush on going to war. In fact, he agreed that the United States was right to disarm Saddam Hussein as recently as spring 2003, and President Bush pointed this out in his rebuttal. If Kerry is so quick to go back on what he said, I am not convinced that he is fit to make split-second decisions in the White House.

Kerry said something else that made little sense to me: "I believe that fresh start, new credibility, a President who can understand what we have to do to reach out to the Muslim world, to make it clear that this is not — you know, Osama bin Laden uses the invasion of Iraq in order to go out to people and say that America has declared war on Islam."

It is no secret that most of the Middle East hates the United States, and has hated it long before President Bush came into office. In fact, as long as we consider Israel an ally, that region of the world will continue to have a less-than-favorable view of the United States. Kerry does not seem to understand that. One can also gather from Kerry's argument that he believes if he was in office, Osama bin Laden would no longer go around saying that the United States declared war on Iraq, but also war on Islam.

President Bush, of course, also made some ridiculous gaffes and errors in speaking. In one part, he referred to a "pre-September 10 mentality" in hoping "that somehow resolutions and failed inspections would make this world a more peaceful place," when he clearly meant to say a "pre-September 11 mentality." In various parts of the debate he countered Kerry by saying that we do have a strong coalition, and that Kerry left out Poland in his recalling of countries that are fighting with us. Kerry had better not forgot Poland next time, though, or he might anger the ruthless Polish lobby; every vote counts, after all.

In all, it was a great and informative debate, and I was glad that neither candidate brought up anything about the ludicrous swift boat veteran argument or Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard. While each candidate was earnest and demonstrated good rapport, I think President Bush did a better job of conveying his arguments. In the wake of a weak Democratic National Convention which was dwarfed by the Republican Convention, and judging by the fact that the polls have been favoring Bush, Kerry really should have stepped it up in this debate, but he did not. There are still two more debates, and nothing has been decided yet, but it appears that the Democrats' chance at the White House is slowly dissipating.

Gerry Wachovsky is a senior broadcast journalism major at CSULB and the Diversions editor of the Daily 49er.