Steve Reads

4 Comments

1. After watching the debate we turned on Fox News Channel, just to see the Republican spin. And I realiezd then that, for the most part, the fact that Bush was trounced in the debate didn’t mean anything. What means everything is the spin the media puts on it afterwards. What clips are they going to show of the debate, since most of American probably didn’t watch it? What quotes are they going to pull from the debate? How is each candidate going to be portrayed?

   Just as an FYI, Bush was “concise.” That’s the start of the spin, it would seem. Other words I would have chosen were “flustered” and “angry” but I guess I’m not a member of the media.

   Comment by agerard — January 1, 1970 @ 8:00 am

2. A big issue is that the debate started out very boring and canned at first. So boring, in fact, that my wife fell asleep and then got up to clean the house rather than watch the rest of the debate. However, just about half way through it’s as though Bush ran out of material or something. He started getting flustered and making long pauses. Kerry basically roared in and filled the gap, which is great for Kerry. Unfortunately, I wonder how many people were still watching by that point. So not only are the majority of people going to see this through the media spin but those who managed to watch the debate and left may not have seen Kerry’s upsurge.

   Most news outlets seem to be saying “Debate was Kerry’s but polls aren’t showing a enormous margin” or something like that. It’s as though they aren’t allowed to say “Kerry wiped the floor with Bush”. They have to do the “fair and balanced” thing and throw Bush some sort of bone even if he doesn’t really deserve it.

   In any case, I think this has to help Kerry to some degree. I feel a little bit more confident about him rather than just disliking Bush but I wonder what the rest of the US thinks?

   Comment by mrz — January 1, 1970 @ 8:00 am

3. I was reading the liveblogging of the debate on the many many blogs linked from Instapundit, and the instantaneous responses varied wildly. The same comment from a candidate was evaluated as “SLAM DUNK!” by some bloggers, while others expressed disbelief that the candidate could lie so boldly. It’s hard to make any sense of it, really. People see what they want, I guess.

   Comment by Adam Rosi-Kessel — January 1, 1970 @ 8:00 am

4. To the extent that we trust polls generally, I think the final arbiter of this debate will be the polls. If Kerry gets a boost out of this, it will have been a win for him. If Bush “won,” that’ll probably seal the election for him.

   I watched Fox afterwards as well. It’s amazing how quickly Fox turns it into a meta-story — the story about, say, how much headroom both candidates had. It turns into the story about the debates, rather than the story about the content of what they said. And when Fox does talk about what they said, they misstate what Kerry said. And they criticize him for not laying out his plan on Iraq, even though he had 2 minutes to do so and just pointed people to his website. Bah.

   The electoral-vote map isn’t looking so good, at least pre-debate.

   Comment by Steve Laniel — January 1, 1970 @ 8:00 am

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