Style versus Substance..
Just a quick note on the Presidential debate that took place tonight in Florida: Immediately after the debate was over I started flipping through the channels to see what the non-bias media commentators had to say. I witness one of the strangest things that may have gone unnoticed by many. After watching the debate on MSNBC, I turned to Faux News to hear the conservative spin doctors do their thing, and one of the first things said was Kerry definitely won on style but Bush won on substance. I then turned to PBS and heard one of the commentators say the same thing; I turned back to MSNBC and to my surprise one of the commentators said the Kerry won on style and Bush won on substance talking point. At this point I am saying to myself what are the chances of these various commentators on different networks coming to the same conclusion verbatim? The chances of that are as slim as another Blogger writing what I am writing word for word. I was not completely convinced that this was a preplanned talking points until I was watching Dick Morris on Faux news; he was being interviewed from London where he was promoting the Conservative movie answer to Michael Moore Fahrenheit 9/11, called Farenhype 9/11. As Dick Morris was talking out of his mouth comes the Republican talking point Kerry won on style but Bush won on substance, I said damn, what are the chances of Dick Morris watching the debate from London concluded and articulating the same thing as commentators in Florida, New York and Washington? It is clear this was a preconceived response in the event Bush lost the debate, which he did. So as you read the various articles today watch out for the Republican talking point about style versus substance.
posted by Faheem @ 10/01/2004 01:31:00 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Here is an article from Fox Website containing the talking point as qouted by Dick Morris.
"Dick Morris, a FOX News analyst who once advised former President Bill Clinton, said Bush won on substance while Kerry did better on style"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134165,00.html
Yeah, Kerry certainly sounded more articulate and appeared less flustered, so I guess that wins him the style points. What I do not understand from this is how one can define substance. Substance, I would assume, is a plan to make America and both the world a better and safer place. Both presented their plans for achieving this. Thus, how could Bush have won in substance? There is no objective way of concluding this. However, if one already had a preconceived notion of what substance would best protect America, then they would subjectively conclude that Bush won in substance.
Neither candidate put a change of American policy in the Middle East, in regards to preferential treatment of Israel as a means of making American safer. This is a main, if not the main, source of animosity of Arabs and Muslims toward the USA and the West. This idea that people “hate our freedom” is simply sophomoric.
Bush also made the point that it is important to project strength, lest you encourage aggressors against you. In fact, that is the same thing said by North Koreas president as his rational for developing his nuclear program. He feared that without them or the fear of them…that the US would attack his nation. Thus, Bush and his actions are counter intuitive and productive to his stated objectives. When nations start to invade other nations, it simply accelerates the arms race.
The truth is that America, regardless of the president, will be less safe in the future. A president might be able to do things to make the present generation feel safer in the short run, but at the expense of future generations in the long run.
Pretty simplistic, but - isn't it possible that so many commentators were making the same statements because THAT WAS THE WAY IT WAS?
I thought that Kerry looked better stylistically myself. Bush is not very good in this sort of a venue - and he did not disprove that belief of mine last night.
I won't go into my beliefs overall and how they matched up with the debaters. Only that - maybe everyone is saying this because it is so. No big conspiracy - just simple observation.
FUCK the debate was painful to watch.
Afterwords I had to watch Iron Chief to get some serineity (sp).
I was embassed to be an American watching those two. Kerry had nothing to say, Bush had nothing to say. And they said nothing for 90 fucking minutes.
And lets not even talk about the pundits, "I was exciting". Yea, getting paid overtime must have been exciting to them because it wasn't the debate.
See we can agree on something.
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