Round 1: Kerry
Tonight should have been Bush’s home-court advantage, the focus being
Iraq, Terrorism, and so on. He seems to have squandered it. Some of
it isn’t too surprising. Despite what Gore
may think, Bush’s strength isn’t oration. Kerry did an excellent job,
especially going after Bush on Iraq without appearing overly negative.
Bush failed to capitialize on any of Kerry’s missteps or bring out any
strong cases for himself in the general area.
Personally, I was disappointed at the lack of substance. Not
surprised, but still disappointed. Kerry said multiple times he had a
plan, but I failed to understand what it was. Even after reading his
website,
I’m not sure how it differs from anything we’re doing right now. Part of what feeds into why my vote will probably stay with Bush.
The coming days should reveal the impact of the debate. Interesting
days on http://www.electoral-vote.com/
for sure. Up until the Republican Convention I was pretty sure Bush
was going to lose, but he came out of it with a fair bit of momentum.
Wonder if Kerry will be able to swing it his way after tonight.
October 1st, 2004 at 10:40 am
I was watching Daily Show after the debate and they had Rudy Guiliani as a guest. It made me sick because Guiliani basically said that Iraq and Al Qaeda were related and that it made perfect sense to invade Iraq in response to 9/11. It’s just like, this is the mayor whose city was attacked by people clearly unrelated to Saddam Hussein or Iraq, and he spouting this bullshit policy that the President put together (and the 9//11 report said was incorrect). Goddamn!
October 1st, 2004 at 11:16 am
I’m reading the 9/11 report right now… which part of it said the Iraq is wrong?
October 1st, 2004 at 1:29 pm
The 9/11 report says that there is no connection between Saddam Hussein/Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
You think that they are related?
October 1st, 2004 at 2:44 pm
No idea, that’s why I’d be curious if there’s strong evidence one way or the other.
October 1st, 2004 at 5:44 pm
You are worse than Guiliani! :)
October 1st, 2004 at 5:47 pm
The more I think about it, maybe they are related.
Like Iraq is in the middle east right? And so is Afghanistan.
If you put the names together, you come up with
Osamaddam Husladen
And all the hijackers were from Iraq right? No, wait Saudi Arabia. Ok, maybe that part isn’t related.
October 1st, 2004 at 5:49 pm
I think the problem is that Bush keeps telling us we are safer from terrorism because of the war on Iraq despite any strong, or any, evidence that there was a connection between Iraq and terrorism. And it’s particularly unnerving that he is still doing it even after the 9/11 report and after a year of searching for connections between Iraq and terrorism to no avail.
October 1st, 2004 at 5:56 pm
“Responding to a presidential tasking, Clarke’s office sent a memo to Rice on September 18, titled “Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks.” Rice’s chief staffer on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evi dence linked Iraq to al Qaeda.The memo found no “compelling case”that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks. It passed along a few foreign intelligence reports, including the Czech report alleging an April 2001 Prague meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer (discussed in chapter 7) and a Polish report that personnel at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad were told before September 11 to go on the streets to gauge crowd reaction to an unspecified event.Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Finally, the memo said, there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconven tional weapons.”
9/11 report - Section 10.3 - “Phase Two” and the Question of Iraq
October 1st, 2004 at 5:57 pm
Khayman is my new friend
October 1st, 2004 at 5:58 pm
It seems like terrorism is a bigger threat now that Iraq is a lawless expanse of occupier haters.
October 1st, 2004 at 9:34 pm
Much like Iraq, my blog has become a lawless expanse of occupier haters.
Damn hippies.
October 10th, 2004 at 11:58 pm
I declare jihad.