Originally posted by JaTo: Bush came off better than I hoped, but he's still got a ways to go at presenting his ideas to the public. I was getting pretty agitated with some of the constant repetition of points that he made, using the EXACT same verbage every time.
In terms of pure presentation, Kerry nailed this one. In terms of substance, he really tossed out some stinkers in terms of "facts" and "statistics" and was entirely too generic.
Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time. Ouch, twice was enough.
I had trouble getting past kerry's response to question two where he stated "And I will hunt down and kill the terrorists,". IIRC, he's against the death penalty.
As for stats & facts, the war has cost ~125B, not the $200B claimed by Kerry. Bush also dropped it on training of Iraqis, a questionable number, and subjucetive in as much as the level of training remains unknown.
Bush's most serious error was not pouncing on Kerry's support of first the War itself and the support for the troops, yet not supporting the $87B aid package. It was Kerry himself who brought up the body armor issue. Bush should have slammed that right back in Kerry's face.
The transcript is here for anyone who missed it or needs a refference:
