Bush did far better than I expected. Little Junior has been practicing.
I say Bush won...and I hate Bush just as much as your next good American. As I predicted, Kerry's points require logic and conceptualization to take in, while Bush (as I predicted) relied on jingoism and simple self-preservationism. Kerry may have slightly won the debate in the opinions of the intelligentsia, but they do not run America. America is a land of Mcleanhatches...you know, the simple common folk.
Kerry had to meet Bush on his level and prove him invalid and patently false. He may have made a few good points, but he did not utterly destroy Bush on his own terms.
"If you speak out against the Iraq war you are belittling our troops."
"If you falter, if you change your mind, you show the world weakness," etc. etc.
"The UN is a world council of liars"...lmao
"Other countries don't know what's best for America"
Kerry failed to show how and why these points were invalid. Bush presented his typical tripe, and America by and large eats it up. My Republican roomate always talks about how the UN is a "corrupt" organization, other countries are out to get us, etc.
Kerry needed not just to win on some simple argumentarian level, he needed to absolutely destroy Bush. The balance of power says that Bush has more leverage...thus if Kerry achieves equilibrium, the scale will be tipped back to Bush.
O'Reilly and the new Republimerica environment where "right is center" says that Kerry has to be a huge winner on every count in order to get a majority vote. I just don't see this happening.