The Shrine

<div style='font: 10pt Tahoma; text-align: left; '>Great debate so far. Man, i love the domestic issues of demo's (i'm for stem cell and pro-choice) and Kerry is looking good, but i'm still not 100% sure he can live up to his promises and i agree with Bush on foreign policy... inspite what some of you may believe, i truly am an undecided voter.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>My Lord, that just fucking killed me. Kerry gives an answer basically saying "I can't let my Catholic background force me to ban abortion 'cause a lot of other religions don't agree" with Bush's response as "I'm trying to decipher that". Bush may as well have said "I'm too stupid to understand that"</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It has been a fairly even debate so far, IMO.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Not necessarily stupidity. He can't think on his feet. He can't process it fast enough. My mother, a special education teacher, thinks he has a learning disability.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>You mean to go along with his reality disability? :-)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>This one really seemed less like a debate... I think it was the townhall format. Or maybe it was my fellow St. Louisans answering the questions? Hmmm... :) I felt that this debate was more or less a continuation of the last debate: Kerry acting distinguished, giving clear concise answers (more so that anyone expects him to give), and Bush seeming agitated, annoyed, and having difficulty forming his thoughts into words. In the debate you could tell that Bush was trying much harder, this may have been the cause of his visibly increased frustration, he even got into a verbal spat with the moderator at one point. I think the open format that allowed the candidates to move around was a plus for Bush, he didn't have to stand there looking like he was going to explode at any moment like in the last debate.

I didn't think that Bush did a good job AT ALL in trying to lay out his vision for what he wants to do in a 2nd term. I though Kerry did a semi-decent job, although he spent most of his time going after Bush. I think Kerry could have used the weapons inspection report that came out this week to his advantage, instead he let Bush spin the findings of the report and use it to <i>his</i> advantage. I also thought that Kerry depended way too much on repealing Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy as a panacea for the nation's problems and that he never really answered the question about how exactly he would cut the deficit in half in four years. His response to the question on abortion, although it made sense, seemed wishy-washy in a kind of "make everybody happy" kind of way. Abortion is basically the only issue that I disagree with Kerry on. Other than that, I thought that Kerry hit Bush hard on areas such as Iraq, the environment, the deficit, the economy, healthcare and did a fairly decent job selling his own healthcare plan. Kerry also did a good job defending himself. He left no opening uncovered and nullified Bush's attacks on his "liberal record", on his assertions that he would raise taxes, and his and John Edwards law careers. I thought Kerry's best attacks were on Bush's environmental record and his statement that if Missouri were counted as one of the member nations in the "coalition of the willing" that it would be the third largest member nation in terms of troop commitment.

During the debate Kerry sucessfully differentiated himself from Bush on most issues and made himself seem like a viable alternative. Bush attempted to make him and Kerry look the same on Iraq (to scare anti-war people away from Kerry) and to look very different on issues such as taxation, healthcare, abortion, stem-cell research, etc.. Bush offered little new but a restatement of his beliefs, a defense on his records and (mostly) baseless attacks on Kerry.

Overall this debate seemed much more confrontational than the last and both candidates continued to "spin" the "facts" to support their purposes. How will the next one go? Time will tell. The next one (on Wednesday) will be over domestic policy. Hopefully Kerry can come with a more detailed plan for how he'll reduce the deficit, provide tax cuts, expand healthcare coverage, *AND* fight a better war in Iraq all at the same time... and hopefully Bush can come up with something, anything, good to say about why we should re-elect him and be able to speak distinctly enough to convey it.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>As undecided as O'Reilly was on the Daily Show?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Bush has a real problem with going with his rebuttal without asking permission from the moderator. He did it a bunch in the first debate. The moderator barely had time to hit the clock for the time. In some cases, he would ramble on a little longer than usual, past the flashing red light.

He's been really disrespectful of the moderators so far, and he pissed off the second one to no end. You could tell that he was pissed off of the spin getting passed around the court.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I can't believe Kerry forgot Poland.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Actually, I think it's still more towards Kerry. Bush has gotten more aggressive, but it's only shown that he can lose his cool.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@d ... istortions Galore at Second Presidential Debate</a>

FactCheck is good at the speed of these reports</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>That will probably lose him the election. What an imbecile!</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>If I were the moderator I woulda been like "OK DAMNIT, NO ONE is leaving this room until you ANSWER MY GOD DAMN QUESTION!"

poor spineless guy just gave up...and he shouldn't have let Bush bitch slap him like that either</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Yeah, that was really bugging me... Also, I think that they should have cut Bush's mic that one time that he went out of turn and got into a "spat" with the moderator. :)</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>too bad O'Reilley wasn't moderator :P</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I don't think Kerry really dodged the question. He specified many times that he would reverse most of the tax cuts. Now, if that isn't going to reduce the defecit, I don't know what will.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>A million things COULD lose him the election, but they won't. The American people is too stupid and swayed by the best spin doctor the nation has ever seen.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>hahaha, oh the irony...sweet delicious irony. Thanks Sine, that made me smile</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Please. Enlighten me with your (probably dumb) kernel of knowledge.</div>

<div style='font: ; text-align: left; '>Both candidates are weak in the eyes of Crom!</div>

<div style='font: ; text-align: left; '>All puny humans are weak in the eyes of Morbo!</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Here's an idea: an efficient, less-spending government</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Sine, the only reason Kerry isn't way ahead right now is because he's just not a good politician. It's never good when the main reason many people vote for you is because they don't like the other guy</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>you're talking about how stupid Americans are while proving you're most likely one of them too in the same sentence :P because you "is too stupid"</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Hmmm, wouldn't it be interesting to see John Kerry in a debate with Don Cherry? =)</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Well, I've my good reasons to vote for the guy besides ABB.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>So, you're taking up a lame "grammer nazi" defense to try to invalidate my entire argument? Just quit while you're ahead.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>haha grammar nazi? No Sine, it's called 2nd grade english</div>