The Debate: A High-Quality, Biased Tie

Debates are over-rated. Hardly free-wheeling, they're overstructured and under-fed. True, a candidate can lose a debate: Nixon in 1960 assuming TV make-up's for sissies (Nixon 1960); Ford in 1976 denying Soviet control over Eastern Europe; and Gore's 2000 testosterone fueled eye-roll/sigh combo. But debates normally are a draw. Hard to get civic-minded-choked-up about a tie (take note Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America--it's not a sport unless it produces one (or multiple) winner and loser).

In a Weekly Standard article posted Tuesday, Mike Murphy predicted:

What actually happens in the debate, barring a highly entertaining Tourette's style meltdown by one of the candidates, really doesn't matter. This is the first campaign debate in George W. Bush's career where he has entered with performance expectations, a troubling burden. While I expect the president will actually do well, that expectations game and the comeback narrative will combine, through the media's funhouse mirror, to put Kerry back in the race. Even though it may ultimately be simply an optical illusion.

So four questions: was the debate important?; fair?; funny?; and--games in America must end before Leno--who won?

IMPORTANCE--SOME: The initial scan of the transcript does not impress. Sounding a bit disappointed, the Washington Post concluded: "There were no glaring mistakes by either candidate during the 90-minute debate."

But most others praised the 90 minute show, including New York Times, National Review Columnist Jonah Goldberg and Blogger-in-Chief Glenn Reynolds.

FAIRNESS--NONE: Early in the program, Jim Lehrer's questions either favored Kerry or were softballs. Kerry wasn't asked about his foreign policy flip-flops. Instapundit tracks the issue; Hugh Hewitt's debate scorecard has the details.

HUMOR--SOME: Well, a gaffe, anyway. Kerry's channeling Howard Dean again, when asked about preemptive war in the future:

The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War. And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control.

No president, though all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.

But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

The global test? To save America from nukes, what proof would Kerry require? And who would have to concurr? Hint--there's plenty of cheeses there.

AND THE WINNER IS: Bush, according to Hugh Hewitt, but his scoring is. . . ah. . . odd. Slight nod to Kerry, according to the Washington Post and Fred Barnes. But a tie goes to the incumbent:

Kerry did the best that could be expected of him in the 90-minute debate, he didn't elicit the sort of gaffe from Bush that might have altered the race. . . . But that's not enough, by itself, to lift Kerry back to parity with Bush. What Kerry needed was some embarrassing moment for Bush, a clumsy statement perhaps or an unpresidential moment of indecision, that would be played over and over again on TV news shows for the next few days. That didn't happen. Kerry annoyed Bush, even exasperated him at times. But he didn't force Bush to make an error.

I thought the debate a tie (good Bush first half; Kerry rallied late), as did a few bloggers and some guy named Lockhart who works for Kerry. Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard also scored it even. But recent U.S. citizen John Derbyshire (National Review) summarizes best:

John Kerry plus: He does not come across as arrogant and obnoxious as we believe him to be.

John Kerry minus: His positions don't hold together in any coherent way.

George W. Bush plus: He has an air of authority, experience, and purpose I don't recall from 2000.

George W. Bush minus: The President is a dismally poor public speaker.

More:

Former Reagan White House Counsel Fred Fielding: "You know how I knew Bush won the debate? When I woke up this morning, and the headline didn't say 'Bush Loses Debate.'"