I'm sure all of you are just sitting on pins & needles waiting for the Not-So-Good Doctor's assessment of the debate last night (yeah, I know...), and I'll keep you in suspense no longer. Below are my words from an email to RK this morning which I'm copying here because I'm simply too lazy-- it is Friday morning, after all, which, by the way, would have been an interesting Wallace Stevens poem-- to rewrite in more generalized form. The irony: that as I write this, one of the Talking Heads on CNN is admitting that from the traditional standards of a debate, Mr Kerry probably won, but It is also saying that President Bush acquitted himself and defended his position effectively, which strikes this viewer as gross proof of my email's later points about the press. "In the more traditional form of a debate"? D'Oh! "Acquitted himself?" How?!?
Un-bloody-believable. The Press must not have been watching
the same event that I was watching, and, more importantly, it seems utterly unwilling to examine a debate
as a debate. I should say that although my antipathy towards the American President is no secret, I'm more than capable of setting aside my own beliefs to assess rhetorical and oratorical effectiveness. In fact, as the night wore on, I wound up trying to hunt for things to praise in Mr Bush's performance, like the teacher "looking to give out marks," always a sign of an evaluator's sense of pity and self-examination.
- Anyway, if you want to read my remarks to RK, click here. Also check out Slate's analysis.
You're right, Kerry was *really, really* good last night, though I cannot for the life of me understand how the commentators afterwards have been able to say it was "a tie" or "inconclusive." I almost felt sorry for Bush: his performance was so poor, so frustrated, so monotonous, so vapid. It was embarrassing how soundly Kerry was demolishing -- and agitating-- the Prez; it was like watching the reigning champ in the ring being pummelled to death, often simpering in his corner and then coming out to make a few flimsy attempts at a punch, only to end up pummelled and simpering again. And better, Kerry came across very well (though still no Cicero): aggressive, assertive, but not defensive; disciplined, focussed, and even -- hark!-- a bit charming. From pure debating standards, it was a blow-out, so I really have no clue how the Yank commentators can be so tepid.
Another metaphor, one familiar to both of us in spades: watching and listening to Bush last night was like listening to a not-too-bright student try to defend a D- paper. He all-too-obviously kept trying to defend himself, stuttering and stammering and making mistakes, but when most confused, he kept retreating to the same phrases that he felt had to say ("mixed messages" became so annoying, I wanted to bitch-slap him). Those phrases weren't Reaganesque reinforcements of message: they were intellectual security blankets to which the President clung so needily, the vain forms of desperate protestation that only end up demonstrating that he doesn't really know what he's talking about, the verbal buoys within the sea of his confusion. It was depressing, especially from the standpoint of that D- student: the chap was out of his depth, clearly lost without his steeling speeches and his battalion of advisors; this was a man who couldn't think coherently on his own, who couldn't articulate himself without the dispensation of tired soundbytes, all intended to demonstrate that he actually does know what he's talking about. Clearly, he doesn't-- like the student who keeps saying "the gender hierarchies" or "cultural materiality" but has no idea how to use those terms, let alone what they mean, or how to work beyond those easy terms to make them relevant. The worse part is, one gets the sense that no matter how much one tried to talk him through things, to ground him in facts, he'd never go any further in his thinking. The result from the viewing standpoint is one of despair. The man's in an intellectual cul-de-sac, the D- student frustrated with that D- but whose intellectual arc is descendant rather than ascendant. It was just plain sad.
But my greatest frustration is with the commentators, who seem now unable to judge genuine debate-- and I think the format actually worked out better than any of us had anticipated. The pundits seem to have developed a built-in pity for Bush, a glib "well-that's-just-the-way-George-is" mentality that grades him on a lesser scale than they would anyone else. It was like watching Woodrow Wilson-- or "Professor Wilson," as Mencken kept calling him long after he became President-- debate Gerald Ford, and then to have the result declared inconclusive, even though flash-polls this morning are all giving Kerry a significant win with numbers in the area of 53-37, numbers pretty decisive if you ask me, especially when one considers that 37% is around the number of Bush's base who'd never vote for Kerry even if W went out and Michael Jacksoned himself. In other words, the prognosticators are proving themselves the types who'd give that D- student B's for the rest of the course, while lowering the A student to the B level, the evaluators more dangerously uncritical than even that D-student. (Types we both know are not only alive and well at the university level, but now indeed constitute the white-washing majority.) That, in fact, sends a chill down my spine.
To tie things up with a lazy metaphor: Kerry earned an A last night, a solid one, Bush a D- (and embarrassing one, one even the result of a bit of pity for the poor guy), and the press an F, who hardly seemed to have watched the same event the rest of us watched. Kerry may have saved himself from oblivion last night, and maybe it's the peripeteia that he needed, even though he may have raised the standards by which his own performances at the coming debates will be judged. But I think it's about time the press stopped giving the President a bye on matters; for him they've lowered the bar so low that were this a limbo competition only a toddler could win. Gob-stopping, as they say.
Sorry, I've gone on a bit, though I think I may throw this on my blog and save myself the effort of rewriting it (so I guess you're getting a personalized copy). Below's a bit that was going around the TSE Discussion forum that's quite funny and that you should enjoy. I did. Cheers, J.
- And here is John Kerry's very clever response on The BoSox question, from last year.
from Wednesday, November 12, 2003
A baseball metaphor that scores! Early in the CNN "Rock the Vote" Democratic debate a week ago, the following interchange took place--
QUESTION: Senator Kerry?
KERRY: Yes, sir.
QUESTION: You're the manager of the Boston Red Sox.
(LAUGHTER)
KERRY: Yes.
QUESTION: It's game seven.
(UNKNOWN): That's one way to get Kerry out of the race.
(LAUGHTER)
QUESTION: It's game seven of the ALCS versus the New York Yankees. Your starting pitcher appears to be tiring.
(LAUGHTER)
You know it's best for the team to replace him, but the star asks to stay in. Do you make an executive decision and take him out? Or do you listen to your star and let him, the person who you hired in that role, and let him finish that job?
(APPLAUSE)
KERRY: That's a great question.
(APPLAUSE)
KERRY: Wilmington, thank you very much for the question. I thought it was tough running for president of the United States. Now he wants to make me manager of the Red Sox.
(LAUGHTER)
KERRY: Let me tell you something. You know why I will be a great president of the United States? Because I've been a long suffering Red Sox fan. I know adversity.
(APPLAUSE)
Like most of you here, I was throwing things at the television set, screaming at Grady Little, 'Get him out of there. Get him out of there.'
And regrettably he didn't. Now we have another round. But that's our role in life. You have to understand. If you come from Boston, you come from Massachusetts, you love the Red Sox, your role in life is to put up with it.
And I'll tell you what. Every single one of us ought to celebrate the Marlins beating the Yankees.
(APPLAUSE)
And the reason it's extra special is that's the first legitimate victory out of Florida since 2000.
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