Neutralizing The Flip-Flop Charge
Paul Glastris, Gayle Smith, Michael Tomasky, Robert L. Borosage
October 01, 2004
TomPaine.com asked two journalists and two policy experts to give a rapid response to round one in the presidential debates. In terms of rhetorical force and substance, Kerry won, they conclude. By refusing to concede mistakes in Iraq, Bush revealed himself steeped in denial. For an assessment of the accuracy of each candidate’s statements, see Distortions and Misstatements At First Presidential Debate from FactCheck.org—a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Paul Glastris, Editor In Chief, The Washington Monthly
John Kerry didn’t just best George Bush in Thursday night’s debate. He won on virtually every level. For one thing, he looked better. His posture was erect, but not stiff. He seemed intense and focused, but also calm. The president, by contrast, seemed peevish and defensive as he slumped over the podium.
More substantively, Kerry finally offered a succinct explanation of his (longstanding) position on the war in Iraq. That largely neutralized—at least for the evening—what had hitherto been Bush’s most dangerous weapon, the flip-flop charge. Kerry also owned up to misspeaking about his vote for the $87 billion in funding for Iraq, while slyly comparing the seriousness of that mistake to the president’s choice of invading Iraq. Having thus deftly escaped the various rhetorical straightjackets that had hindered him, Kerry was able to go on the offensive—which he did for most of the 90 minute debate. Bush, meanwhile, was forced to defend his policies in the face of catastrophic facts on the ground—which he did by retreating behind euphemisms (“it’s hard work”) and dull litanies of not-very-encouraging administration actions (money spent, summits held, etc).
Bush had a few good moments—especially his recounting of a solemn meeting with a woman named Missy—whose husband had been killed in Iraq. But Kerry marshaled the more devastating facts; my favorite was the statistic that we’ve spent 10 times more fighting in Iraq than in Afghanistan, even though Saddam was hardly 10 times more dangerous than bin Laden. Kerry also had the more memorable lines—especially the one about how it’s possible to be “certain but wrong.”
But perhaps the best line of the night was one that underscored Kerry’s most important message of the night—that he, not the president, has the plan best able to deliver an acceptable end to the war in Iraq. The line was that the president’s plan can be summed up in four words: “more of the same.”
Gayle Smith, Senior Fellow, American Progress Action Fund
On his part, John Kerry put forward more substance, process and detail—though his projections of a Kerry administration focused more on approach than on the specifics: he would work better with allies; focus on Osama bin Laden as the real target in the war on terrorism; and pursue a more comprehensive approach to nonproliferation. President Bush—on the other hand—stuck to themes rather than setting out either policies or plans: the war in Iraq is tough; freedom is great; and with resolute conviction, we will win.
Both men committed some errors of fact, though they were different in scope. Kerry omitted Poland as one of the key members of the coalition in Iraq; Bush said that 100,000 Iraqi security personnel have been trained but omitted that less than 10 percent of them have been fully trained. Kerry proposed sanctions against Iran and then accused Bush of imposing unilateral sanctions; Bush said that he had already imposed sanctions on Iran—but that they were imposed by the Clinton administration.
Perhaps it is the nature of the beast that Iraq has become, but the debate focused more on the past than on the future. The only concrete proposal that emerged was John Kerry's pledge that he would call a summit on Iraq; Bush countered with the announcement that the Japanese are planning a summit of donors to Iraq, and Colin Powell helped. Kerry's proposal is a good one—and probably feasible. A United States willing to concede that things in Iraq are not going swimmingly—and able to share some of the responsibility for getting it right—might be able to persuade other countries to step up to the plate. But it's unlikely that voters will come away able to judge the feasibility of either man’s pledges. George Bush's assertion that a steady and unwavering course is the only way to win in Iraq will be tested by reality over the next 30 days, and if the past three months are anything to go by, it may prove hard for the White House to maintain the rosy scenario they've painted. But John Kerry's promise to enlist a broader international coalition and step up the training can only be judged in the abstract—and taken on faith.
What may stick in voters' minds as they absorb the debate is the facts—and John Kerry did more to insert facts into his responses than did the president. The fact that 90 percent of containers coming into America are not searched; that the cargo holds of commercial planes are not screened with the same vigor as are passengers; that North Korea now has more nuclear capability than it did three years ago; that opium production in Afghanistan has increased—all of these are revealing facts about which most Americans are unaware. On his part, President Bush's responses were peppered with assertions—that we will win the war in Iraq, that a free Iraq will undermine the terrorists, and that our reliance on China will yield results in North Korea. None of these assertions is necessarily wrong—but neither are they sharp enough to capture Americans' attention in the way that the image of a plane full of screened passengers with a dirty bomb in the hold might.
Michael Tomasky, Editor In Chief, The American Prospect
They seem to think John Kerry won. You don't have to take Dan Rather's word for it (44 percent said Kerry won in the CBS poll, while just 26 percent backed President Bush), because Joe Scarborough said it, too. And then, around 10:45, a conservative friend of mine called to say that, though he was infuriated by what he saw as Kerry's inconsistencies, he still thought Kerry "cleaned his clock."
I thought Kerry wasn't as direct as he could have been. A telling moment came around 9:35, when Bush began hammering on the point that Kerry was undermining the troops by saying "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" and so forth. Kerry needed to defend himself and answer that point back strongly, but instead he went off and starting talking more about alliances. And I think Kerry should have hammered the Where Is Osama? point harder. He had a good moment when he seized on Bush's use of the words "the enemy" when Bush tried to blur the line between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, but his words are never quite as direct and forceful as you want them to be.
Still, Kerry probably impressed swing voters favorably. Their image of him is derived largely from the Bush campaign ads, so how could he have been worse than that? But the mystery of this night was Bush. He was pretty awful. He seemed like his mind was on the score of a football game that he was being made to miss by being there. Main point: Remember 2000. Al Gore "won," too, and then, by day three or four, he'd "lost." The thing to watch now is what tonight's cable shows say—and the next night, and the next night. This debate won't really end until the spin game ends in a few more days—and if indeed Kerry won—the Kerry campaign has to prevent the victory from being converted into defeat.
Robert L. Borosage, Co-Director, Campaign for America's Future
Last night, Americans finally got a glimpse of reality. The truth about the growing debacle in Iraq got some exposure—as did George Bush's continued, impatient and scornful denial of that reality. Bush “stayed on message,” repeating his memorized attack lines over and over, but he couldn't hide the inescapable reality: Iraq is a catastrophe and the president offers only more of the same.
Bush had every advantage going into the debate. As a wartime president, he could hide behind the sacrifice of the soldiers. His attack dogs had bloodied John Kerry badly over the past weeks. Worried about a stature gap, his negotiators had even insured that TV would mask the difference in their height. But Kerry's strong performance put the reality about Iraq before the American people. Everything the president told us about the war in Iraq turned out to be false. Hussein wasn't a threat. He had no weapons of mass destruction. He wasn't connected to September 11 or al Qaeda. We weren't greeted as heroes. The president had no plan for the occupation. The troops were exposed without proper forces, equipment or training. The debacle distracted from the pursuit of bin Laden and provided al Qaeda with recruits from across the world. It has cost us dearly in lives and lucre. It has left America more isolated, less admired and less safe.
And the debate revealed that the president is still in denial, abrupt and uncomfortable when faced with the truth. He still paints Saddam—who before the war was a delusional dictator, his weapons dismantled, his army in tatters, his country in shambles, his mind distracted by novels and fantasy—as a threat. He still denies the worsening catastrophe on the ground in Iraq. He still ignores the basic failures on security at home. The structured formats of presidential debates usually make for bad acting and hokey pre-baked gestures. But last night, reality impinged. And the country saw a president who misled us into a horror—and offers only more of the same. With every grimace, every repeat of pat attack lines, President Bush reinforced John Kerry's argument that we need a new president who can face reality and struggle with what are now horrible choices to change our course.
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