Clash of the titans?
I watched the first 2004 U.S. Presidential Debate this evening with my son. Sometimes I think that Canadians pay closer attention to U.S. politics than Americans do! It was interesting watching Bush and Kerry try to "stay on message". Bush - "He's a flip-flopper!" Kerry - "He's a brain-less liar."
Canadians are naturally "Democratic", so my sympathies lay with Kerry. I'd have to say that Kerry performed well and looked "presidential" while Bush seemed annoyed and unable to think on his feet.
I think Kerry did a good job of addressing the character issue that the Republicans have worked hard to create and he seemed to hit home on Bush's litany of international failures (can you say E-raq?). Bush's only real criticism was that Kerry "changes positions", which he seemed to think was a fatal flaw. That kind of proved Kerry's point that "It's one thing to be certain. But you can be certain and be wrong."
I don't know why Bush kept saying "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time". Even though he was characterising Kerry's position (accurately) in what he must have hoped was a negative light it's going to be a sound bite that comes back to haunt him in Michael Moore's next film!
Well there's one foreigner's opinion. We'll see how the pundits spin this over the next few days.
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i didn't know canadians were natural democrats. but it does seem like you guys have your crap together. maybe i'll move there because we definetely don't. the more surface we scrape away the more horrible inner workings of our government we see. america's supposed to be the land of the free, a democracy. i lived in florida during the last election and my vote someone got lost by good ole jeb, bush's handy brother. now bush wants to make abortion illegal again. how are we free when we don't have legal options before us? yeah, michael moore's got plenty of ammo for several more films, books, or whatever.
ReplyDeleteGee, you're out of the Florida into the Texas! Poor girl...
ReplyDeleteCanada is getting more and more "american" every day, but in general I think that Canadian's see government as "there to help" not "there to get in the way." The irony of Republicans is that although they talk about small government they are actually more prescriptive than anyone! Abortion is a good example of that, eh? (I said "eh"! How Canadian.)
Well, don't give up. "Scraping away the surface to reveal the horrible inner workings" eventually has a positive effect.