Post Debate Punditry

The pundits on MSNBC are making a huge deal out of Kerry's mention of Cheney's daughter in tonight's debate. The concensus, and especially Joe Scarborough's opinion, seems to be that it was a mistake to personalize the issue, but Cheney himself has personalized it, hasn't he? Scarborough's point was that if a Republican politicized the gay daughter of a Democrat, that there would be a huge outcry and he's right about that. He's missing the point to some extent, though, because the outcry would be due to the fact a Republican would likely be doing that with the motive of villifying the Democrat for having a gay daughter, whereas Kerry was doing it to point out that Cheney's position on gay marriage is personally hypocritical and intellectually dishonest. There's a huge difference. But Scarborough is very much right for another reason: spin. This thing is going to be spun against Kerry, and Kerry will be defending yet again. The negative spin is going to be very simple and straightforward, and Kerry will have to defend it with nuance.

Tonight, Bush definitely lied (or, to be charitable, he "mis-remembered") when he said "I don't think I ever said I wasn't concerned..." about Osama bin Laden, and "that's... an exaggeration". On March 13, 2002, Bush said exactly that. Here's a link to the full quote. He said it, and it's no exaggeration. Don't believe me? You can see it in this press conference transcript on the White House web site, too. It's about a third of the way down. Just search for "not that concerned". Still don't believe me? Here's the video.

The Kerry blog is full of other posts rebutting Bush claims from this debate, but I'll defer on posting about those until I can get some independent confirmations.