Bill's Notes

1. Debate -- a stalemate, possibly slight edge to Kerry on presentation. Bush was better than the first debate. Tried harder. Bush comes across better in these townhall meetings. Kerry's arrogance and stiffness sometimes came across ... but the biggest issue is Kerry doesn't seem as authoritative as he does behind a podium. Kerry is pompous; he needs a podium as an asset. Bush on the other hand is better at mixing with people.

Regarding content, clearly Bush is the winner because John Kerry doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. A Kerry administration would be like a second Carter Administration. It would be the never-held Mondale Administration. Do people realize that?

Democrats are telling us that not only that they haven't learned anything from Sept. 11, but that they haven't learned anything from from the administration of Ronald Reagan, either.

I keep going back to Michael Moore's telling decision to not use the visuals in F911 of Sept. 11. He thought it was a dignity thing, but I think it demonstrated willful blindness -- a refusal to see what is plain and obvious.

2. The AFL-CIO ought to be very careful about the recent bout of thuggishness at Republican campaign headquarters. You don't really want to start this country down the road of electoral violence, do you? Maybe you do. Don't be surprised if you don't like how this ends up for you.

Bill Whittle has a brilliant and outstanding essay that cuts to the heart of the matter.

He posts a picture of the Twin Towers in flames and says this:

And all of this rage and fury and spitting and tearing up of signs, all of these insults and spinmeisters and forgeries and all the rest, seem to come down to the fact that about half the country thinks you deter this sort of thing by being nice, while the other half thinks you deter this by being mean.

Bill makes me feel a bit ashamed for my harsh criticism of President Bush's inarticulation. No matter how we look at it, President Bush is the only choice. Yeah, I'd like him to be more articulate. He's not. But I trust President Bush and his executive team to hunt down terrorists. I trust John Kerry to do whatever the conventional liberal wisdom believe is the right plan of action, whether or not it works.

I'll add one comment, then urge folks to head over there: I'm starting to hear some people talk about Sept. 11 as a "one time thing". The word for this kind of thinking: denial.

One side's in denial and the other side wants to do the hard work of defending civilization. The choice is clear. But let's hope even if our opponents win that we never find out just how wrong they are.

John Edwards always reminds me of the kind of actors cast as villains. I mean, you know by the third act it'll turn out he's sold his soul for Satan and secretly funds the KKK, all while seeming an innocent and sweet guy.

I'm not saying he is. That's just what he reminds me of.

Cheney, on the other hand, is an actual grown-up, possibly the only one of the four candidates to qualify for that title. He did a good job defending himself from Edwards' various rhetorical tricks, manipulations and machinations ... but to give the devil his due, Edwards didn't come off as a light-weight. He came across as a manipulative lawyer and a bullshit artist.

Unfortunately, sometimes Edwards was right and Cheney didn't do a good job answering legitimate criticisms. Edge to Cheney, but Edwards didn't make any major screwups, either.

Left a job on Friday. Started a new job yesterday. I'm shaking off the cobwebs in the new job, but so far, so good.

I guess I'll miss the old place, too. It grew on me and it was a good place to work. A couple of things impressed me. One was there were lots of good-hearted folks, and even those who were a little prickly seemed fundamentally decent at heart. Second was the work ethic — they were hard workers who didn't need a lot of supervision. Third was they were completing a difficult transition, and succeeding in it, without making a big outward show of things. I liked all that.

But in the end I really preferred a slightly different line of work, and was fortunate enough to get the position I wanted. So it's onward and upward, as a former boss used to say.

I dislike John Kerry more as a result of the debate. But that's because despite his presence and articulation, I still find the substance of his ideas wanting and his style of speech manipulative. Kerry seemed more presidential -- but pretty much the kind of president I don't want.

I prefer Bush's ideas and judgments, but he lacks any kind of serious executive presence. He's not Fortune 5000 material, much less presidential material. The Republicans screwed up by nominating this guy. Now they're [we're]stuck with him.