Kerry's Debate Planners Lose Bid For Less 'Hot Air'


NY Post
Ian Bishop
September 27, 2004


WASHINGTON — The White House is trying to turn up the heat on John Kerry.

President Bush's campaign wants to see the challenger break a sweat under the glare of the national spotlight during the presidential debate Thursday.

They blocked Kerry's request to have the debate room chilled below 70 degrees, leaving Kerry's glands at the mercy of the thermostat at the University of Miami.

"He's a sweater," one GOP official told Time magazine, "and women don't like sweaters."

Keeping the room relatively warm is just one bit of gamesmanship the Bush and Kerry camps wrestled over in an effort to give their candidate the best chance to shine.

Everything from the pens the candidates will carry, stage lighting and the height of the lecterns have been hashed out with the presidential debate commission in an effort to gain an edge.

The high stakes dictated the meticulous planning.

"This will be the most watched event of the political season," Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said.

Both Bush and Kerry spent yesterday practicing for the first debate, which will focus on foreign policy.

Keeping the room relatively warm is just one bit of gamesmanship the Bush and Kerry camps wrestled over in an effort to give their candidate the best chance to shine.

...or not, as the case may be ;)


Both Bush and Kerry spent yesterday practicing for the first debate, which will focus on foreign policy.

...but from the sound of it, the electorate is more likely to focus on sweat gland activity.  Sigh.

No matter what happens during that so-called debate, the media is going to court all the partisan pundits who will say Bush won, and blather on and on about what an elitist snob Kerry is.

The debates are not a referendum on intelligence, ideas, past records, or plans for America.  They are a junior high-mentality contest over who is more "likable."  The media has already concluded a thousand times that Bush is more "likable."  Talk after the debates will be of just how much more likable Bush is.

Everybody who controls the talk on television, from Brit Hume to Deborah Norville, is filthy rich, and they're all going to vote for Bush.  Dan Rather isn't, but he doesn't host a pundit program.  The television talking heads don't live like the average American and more than than the Hollywood stars do.

Yeah, who is more "likable."  Biff Loman for President!
:P

I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous.  I say we go back to the old days when there was a person who asked the questions and the candidates had to think on their feet, not spend a month or so having their speech writers come up with something that "sounds good".

Amen to that!  I wish I could have had the current debate rules in college.  That way I could submit 32 pages worth of things my professors could and couldn't ask me on exams!
:P

See, just like I told you, D-i-c-k Morris was on Faux News tonight pre-emptively calling the first debate for Bush.  Croaking over and over, "no matter what position Kerry takes on foreign policy, he alienates a third of his voters."  Ohhh, he's such a toothache of a man!  How can anybody stand being in the same room with that guy!

The way the fascist news media is spinning it, it is Kerry who has to prove everything.  It's not about reality, it's about strategy--Bush's is good, Kerry's is bad. 

Joe Scarborough put that oaf Bernie Goldberg on for the full hour.  He's still trying to sell the lie of leftward media bias.  Talk about a claim that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.  Case in point, would Joe give a full hour to Eric Alterman, the author of What Liberal Media?  Alterman's book completely shreds the dastardly lies of your Goldbergs and Bozells.  Hmmm...come to think of it, if they give guys like Alterman, David Brock, and Joe Conason the same kind of airtime, I guess the "liberal media" accusations would soon be proved BS to even the thickest of viewers.  I'd like to see point for point debates between the "liberal bias" guys and the "conservative media bias" guys.  But then again, as the Rightie pundits pointed out when Kerry wanted more debates, whoever wants more debates is desperate.  Sigh.
Oh--the conservative bias is not necessarily "cultural," but it is always business bias.  There has been an all-out war on "60 Minutes," for instance, because that program used to make corporations look bad.

Anyway, the fascists have spread pre-debate prejudice against Kerry, and prejudice lives only to confirm itself.  Kerry has already lost the debates, and victory in the elections will not be his.

Bush asked for and got "no direct questions." 

...and still the nation sleeps.  (sigh)




Clinton did the same thing.  Its very smart for an incumbent president to ask for that.  All Bush has to done is hold his own (not win) and the election is his, and Kerry can go back to Massachusetts until 2008 when he'll probably run again (or so says a rumor.)

Clinton did the same thing.  Its very smart for an incumbent president to ask for that.  All Bush has to done is hold his own (not win) and the election is his, and Kerry can go back to Massachusetts until 2008 when he'll probably run again (or so says a rumor.)

Eggzactly! The Prez shouldn't be able to set the parameters.  The debates should be an example of grace under fire.  I'm confident Clinton still would have clobbered both Daddy Bush and Dole in the debates.
It's like I said, if Bush holds his own, he wins, if he loses, he wins.  That's already been determined...so has the outcome of the election.  The right-wing media is tending to the rhetoric, and Satan's elves are tending to the big fix. 
Isn't it oxymoronic how everyone in the media is saying everyone in the media wants Kerry to win?
:D