Tonight's Debate- Transcript
The transcript is on CNN.
Bush looked like a victim of a stroke or Bells palsy. The corner of his lip seemed to sag deeply and unnaturally. Some people observed what appeared to be a bit of drool hanging at the same lip corner.
Both candidates wore similar ties. Even so, it was easy to tell them apart. All you needed to do was to spot the smarter one...the taller one..the one whose eyes weren't blinking at the speed of light. The one who didn't laugh like this: "Eh Eh Eh Eh Eh," while only moving the bottom of his chin, much like a marionette.
"Eh eh eh eh eh"
Bush was totally rude to CBS' Bob Schieffer by making the snide comment about the credibility of "leading news networks". (We know he meant CBS).
Bush quotes that Kerry could've had fun with:
"I was a border governor for a while... Borders are much better protected today than when I was governor of Texas".
To be continued...
10/14 UPDATE: Salon.com is now talking about the drooling and the stroked-out look on Bush's face.
Salon/Joyce McGreevey- Wednesday in the Dark With George: A theater review of the third presidential debate. "..Blinking, drooling and mugging his way in response to a query about vaccines.."
Buzzflash- Third Presidential Debate
"Bush was alternately babbling, snide, smirking, and, we think, drooling."
Jacques Derrida
Derrida and the Last Debate
"Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side."
-- Balthasar Gracian, great advice from his timeless Art of Worldly Wisdom
Tonight is the last chance for George W. Bush to try to prove that John F. Kerry is wrong. He has not had success to date. After Kerry's impressive performance in the first two debates, there are fewer and fewer voters left to convince. The two sides are firmly ensconced. There are few minds left to be changed now. Unless Bush undergoes a lobotomy or Kerry uncharacteristically comes unprepared, it's a near-certainty that Kerry will be tonight's debate victor. In most instances, Kerry sounds "right" and Kerry makes more realistic sense, no matter how many times Bush takes the opposite side for the sake of drawing stark political distinctions with meaningless rhetoric.
We lost philosopher Jacques Derrida last week. Derrida warned that compositionists should be especially wary of what he called “rhetoricism”, which is 'thinking that everything depends on rhetoric.' Certainly, rhetoric is central to almost every facet of life, but Derrida warned that we must not attribute to rhetoric more power than it has. Rhetoric is not the last word. Derrida knew the full complexity of language; its power and its limitations.
George Bush has only his rhetoric left to defend his miserable failures. If Bush is re-elected, it will only mean that Americans have bought into the powerful fantasy of his rhetoric. It's a frightening thought.
DERRIDA Obituary
AndretheGiany blog on Derrida, usury, neo-cons
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What happened to him? His very image used to inspire respect and dignity. Now, knowing what we know, he resembles Howdy Doody.
Blair is sounding like Bush
A far more articulate Bush.
During his most recent weekly questioning period in Parliament, Tony Blair refused to accept responsibility for misleading Great Britain toward the unnecessary war in Iraq. Although he did apologize for the WMD misleading (retracting his '45 minutes' WMD claim), he said he wouldn't ever apologize for removing Saddam Hussein.
Funny, no one asked him to apologise for the idea of removing Saddam Hussein. He's beginning to sound like Bush. What disturbs Blair's fellow politicians is the wrong way he went about "protecting" his nation. At George Bush's side, he rushed to a war because of a supposed "imminent threat", and now says he's proud of changing the regime in Iraq, which was never the supposed rationale for war in the first place. He is using the recent discovery of a mass grave, found by US-led investigators, as his latest crutch to escape responsibility for his failure of leadership. There are mass graves now being required to bury innocent Iraqis caught in the middle of Bush and Blair's folly.
I could hardly believe my ears when I heard Blair say that his angry critics in Parliament were displaying an "inconsistency" in their positions on Iraq and playing politics in attacking him at this stage of the game. It's straight from the Bush administration playbook. The Big Cheese blames the underlings for his shitty decisions when it all falls apart. It's as if he and Bush are saying, "Why, oh why didn't you stop me before I led the nation to disaster?"
The war was outside the rule of international law. It was stupid, it was illegal, it was unjust, it was based on lies, it had deadly consequences for all loyal and trusting troops who were sent to Iraq. The most expert of politicians could never escape responsibility for such a dreadful move. Blair may or may not suffer political consequences in the UK. I think he should, but that's up to the citizens of the UK.
Here in the USA, I am becoming more and more confident by the day that Bush will suffer the consequences of his lies and weak, unrealistic defences for his proven lies when November 2nd rolls around.
Even though he'll never say, I know Blair will be relieved when Bush is thrown out of office by American voters. He said he would like to see the Middle East peace process revived now, but he said the reality is that it will be after the US presidential election in the next few weeks that he can make progress. We all know what that means, don't we?
