Kerry lays out a good, clear plan for getting out of Iraq, while getting his hits in against Bush.

Bush: 100,000 Iraqi troops trained. Excuse me? That’s wrong. Only a small fraction of that number are trained, 100,000 is the goal. And now Bush is hitting Kerry again on Kerry hitting on “our allies.” Bush appears to be defending Alawi, but he is more using him as a bludgeon. Kerry might have to respond to this. Bush is much more on the offensive now, he’s come back from his initial defensiveness. Damn.

Bush: declarative, “We’re going to win this war in Iraq.”

Question to Bush: Will you take us into a preemptive war again? Bush: I hope not, but maybe I’ll have to. He tried to make the point that he was reluctant to go into Iraq. That’s an interesting stretch. “We used diplomacy every chance we get.” The big lie–he did nothing of the sort. And now he’s trotting out Libya, as if that’s a response to the Iraq war.

Kerry pointed out that “the enemy attacked us,” but Iraq, Hussein did not. I’ll have to check the transcript on that, that would be a big gaffe by Bush. Kerry points out how it was al Qaeda that attacked us, and Bush let Osama go; also, Bush was “factually incorrect” (them’s fightin’ words!) on the threat from Iraq–they weren’t a threat. And meanwhile, North Korea and Iran have gone nuclear.

Kerry: the president always has had the right for a preemptive strike. Hmmm… I don’t like that, and I’m not sure that I agree. I did not think that this was official policy–I’ll have to look that one up too. Kerry’s using the de Gaulle story, hitting Bush on leadership.

Both candidates are hitting hard, it’s more or less an even fight now.