Email Debate:

This is an outtake from an email discussion with a friend in regards to the debate:

I think i am either

a)deaf, or

b) too used to yelling/hostility because of my job..

i didn't really pick up on the yelling as much..maybe the volume was too low. but it was definitely intense and passionate. That's a good sign. seriously, i think charisma is an overlooked attribute (although my dad seems to think charisma=trudeau=nep=evil).

anyways here's the complete transcript:

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/11029410p-11946341c.html

and here's bush's answer:

GRABEL: President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what you did to correct it. Thank you.

BUSH: I have made a lot of decisions, and some of them little, like appointments to boards you never heard of, and some of them big.

And in a war, there's a lot of -- there's a lot of tactical decisions that historians will look back and say: He shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have made that decision. And I'll take responsibility for them. I'm human.

But on the big questions, about whether or not we should have gone into Afghanistan, the big question about whether we should have removed somebody in Iraq, I'll stand by those decisions, because I think they're right.

That's really what you're -- when they ask about the mistakes, that's what they're talking about. They're trying to say, Did you make a mistake going into Iraq? And the answer is, Absolutely not. It was the right decision.

The Duelfer report confirmed that decision today, because what Saddam Hussein was doing was trying to get rid of sanctions so he could reconstitute a weapons program. And the biggest threat facing America is terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

We knew he hated us. We knew he'd been -- invaded other countries. We knew he tortured his own people.

On the tax cut, it's a big decision. I did the right decision. Our recession was one of the shallowest in modern history.

Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV.

(LAUGHTER)

BUSH: But history will look back, and I'm fully prepared to accept any mistakes that history judges to my administration, because the president makes the decisions, the president has to take the responsibility.

Now how is that 'not taking responsibility'? i won't get into a tucker vs. begala thing, of course they are both spin masters, and i take them about as seriously as michael moore (that means 'not seriously at all').




>To: Patrick McClarty
>Subject: RE:
>Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 12:11:33 -0700 (PDT)
>
>I am fully aware that Begala is a Democrat spin-man... However, I do think, that while he is no doubt biased, he is much more reasonable than Tucker Carlson, who would never, ever admit Bush did wrong, debate-wise or anything else... He was one of the only people who could claim with a straight face that "Bush won the first debate"... I simply can't respect his reasoning as a result... Thus, I am forced to rely more heavily than I would like on people like Begala... It seems very difficult to get an unbiased oppinion in the media, as everyone is leaning one way or the other...
>
>-D
>
>PS... I did watch part of the debate when I came home after some drinking last night... Seemed like they both did quite well, although they were virtually yelling at the audience!!


>Patrick McClarty wrote:
>
>D:
>
>you should try to watch the debate if possible. it was quite good...i went to the shrumbowl, but when i got home i watched the debate.
>
>begala is a clinton era spin master....and this is a gross distortion of bush's answer. In fact, bush said that he has made many mistakes, citing that many of his appointments were flawed...he said he did not want to name names because he felt it would hurt their feelings...
>
>he said 'when people refer to my mistakes, they are referring to 'was going into iraq a mistake'', and that's how he generally took the question, as a round about way of asking that question. he basically said that was how a pussy would ask if going to iraq was wrong...and he said no, it was not wrong..
> >From: Darren H Sellers
>
>
>
> >To: Patrick McClarty
> >Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 21:38:05 -0700 (PDT)
> >
> >
> >Patty,
> >
> >
> >
> >Hope your Friday night is going well... I did not watch the debate in full tonight... However, when I got home, I did some reading about it and on cnn.com, Paul Begala had the following comment on his blog... (note that he is Democratic-leaning, but nevetheless)...
> >
> >"Kerry's going right at Bush on the issue of mistakes. He's hammering Bush for the way he went to war. Then he admitted he's made mistakes in how he's talked about the war, while Bush made mistakes in how he went to war.
> >
> >Bush was asked to name three mistakes he's made. He can't name one. Breathtaking arrogance. He's had the hardest job in the world for almost four years and he cannot name a single mistake. Either he's the Second Coming of the Messiah, or he's so damned arrogant he's dangerous."
> >
> >Whether he has made the right call on iraq or not may take 20 years to determine (if ever), but it's true that he is arrogant in the extreme in refusing to admit any sort of mistakes at all... An utter joke...
> >
> >
> >
> >Cheers,
> >
D