Well, it’s been an interesting few days since the debate. Everyone, outside of the Republican spin doctors, is saying that Kerry won. There is division on exactly where it happened–I thought it was in the first half of the debate, but many saw him come out strong in the second half. Wherever it was that he did best, it is pretty unanimous that he beat Bush. My own analysis seems pretty tame compared to the opinions out there saying that he wiped the floor with Bush, but I was basing my evaluation not on what Kerry did for me, but what I figured he do for the average American, taking into account the counterweight Bush would provide.

But one other thing that I didn’t consider also affected my assessment: I was blogging throughout the debate. And I am not a touch typist. Which means that I was looking at my keyboard a lot of the time, so to a large degree, I was listening to the debate rather than watching it. One of the things I missed was Bush’s mugging on the split screen while Kerry was talking–blinking, smirking, rolling his eyes, and very often looking peeved and annoyed. The DNC has kindly edited together a one-minute best-of reel of Bush’s mugs (Real Player or Windows Media).

People also speak about how Bush seemed at a loss for words, stumbled in his answered, and looked lost at times. I am pleased that people are talking about these things, but I’m also a bit surprised–I thought that everyone knew about and expected these things, and that many Americans accepted them as part of his down-home everyman charm. Glad to know that I was wrong on that one.

So, as I mentioned before, it’s time for me to watch the debate again, this time with a pause button and some fact-checking.

First of all, I find it interesting to see my observation about the height difference between the two candidates come up later: Fox News posted a photo of the two candidates shaking hands which seemed to show Bush almost as tall as Kerry; for a while, it was thought that Fox had photoshopped it, but it turns out that they had simply chosen the one photo from the one angle that gave the illusion of similar height.

Kerry’s opening, as many have observed, was a bit weak; he used the word “left them [our alliances] in shatters” rather than “left them in tatters,” and he seemed to lose his place for a moment once or twice, but he quickly regained his footing; still, the initial shakiness caused a few of his supporters to worry–concern which was quickly relieved soon enough. Bush, in his first reply, had the same amount of shakiness to him–but his pauses and lost moments only increased through the evening.

Bush’s first rebuttal to the question to Kerry on national security was very indicative of how Bush dissembles so easily and, to many Americans, so convincingly. He said that we have “pursued al Qaeda wherever al Qaeda tries to hide,” for example. Really? How about Afghanistan? “75% of known al Qaeda leaders have been brought to justice.” First of all, 19 of the top 22 al Qaeda leaders are still at large. And second, is he really so simple as to believe that they could run out of leaders, that they are not a replenishable resource? And what about this “bin Laden” guy, the only one most Americans care about? “We’ve upheld the doctrine that said, if you harbor a terrorist, you’re equally as guilty as the terrorist,” except that Pakistan was in league with al Qaeda, still gives them shelter, and their chief nuclear scientist was spreading secrets on how to make nukes all through the region and Bush let him go with a slap on the wrist. “And the Taliban, no longer in power,” but someone better tell that to the BBC, not to mention the Army. Bush added, “10 million people have registered to vote in Afghanistan in the upcoming presidential election.” Actually, the number is now 10.3 million. A very interesting figure, considering that the U.N. estimated that only 9.8 million were eligible to vote, and nearly a million women have not registered yet.

Bush went on with his accomplishments: “In Iraq, we saw a threat and we realized that after September the 11th, we must take threats seriously before they fully materialize. Saddam Hussein now sits in a prison cell; America and the world are safer for it.” Here is Bush’s first allusion to the idea that Saddam Hussein was a threat to us, or even was in on the 9/11 attack. Bush will make a stronger allusion to it later on, and Kerry will call him on it. “We continue to pursue our policy of disrupting those who proliferate weapons of mass destruction. Libya has disarmed.” Which, of course, Bush has little or nothing to do with. The process started under Clinton, and is a result of Gadhafi wanting to get out from under sanctions, like the sanctions said were not working in Iraq. Bush, however, is trying to give people the impression that Gadhafi was building nukes, but when he saw Bush invade Iraq, he wet his pants and rushed to surrender. But if Gadhafi had been doing that, he would have easily seen that the American military is stretched far too thin to be any threat to him. Bush, in short, is claiming victory for something that has nothing to do with his policies.

But the next claim is what raised a lot of eyebrows: “The A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice.” Really? “Justice”? Khan was immediately pardoned by Musharraf–a pardon which was blessed by Bush–and is both a free man and a hero in Pakistan today.

I am spending much time and putting much detail into this list that Bush mentioned quickly in his first words in the debate to make a point: the strategy of the Bush administration is to make outrageous claims, from outright false to simply misleading, knowing that most people will believe them, and it will be too hard for their opponents to make all Americans aware of all the facts in all their detail. Bush’s list of reasons as to why are more secure was almost completely a package of misleading and false impressions, but no doubt millions of Americans bought the whole thing. This is one of their greatest advantages.

Bush sidestepped a question by Jim Lehrer about his and Cheney’s past claims that Kerry being elected would bring on terrorist attacks. Not only did Bush not take the opportunity to take back the allegation or deny that he’d made it, Bush in fact restated the belief using different words: “I don’t believe it’s going to happen. I believe I’m going to win,” in other words, if he didn’t win, then an attack would happen. Very, very slick–he gives the impression that he’s not so mean-spirited to make such a claim, while at the exact same time he repeats that very claim.

By his first rebuttal, Kerry was already strongly back on track, taking to a tactic that he would hold to for the entire debate: first stating his own ability to do the job and do it well, and then cutting into Bush, reciting a litany of facts about how Bush has bungled the job. And here’s where seeing the debate was a big influence: you could see Kerry was poised and resolute while speaking, and on the split-screen, Bush was looking almost lost, blinking far more than normal, with his famous deer-in-the-headlights expression appearing on and off. In his second rebuttal to Kerry, on what Bush’s “colossal blunders” were, Bush came across as annoyed and peevish–and was off to a half-hour of being on the defensive.

He also continued to make false claims: “Saddam Hussein had no intention of disarming. Why should he?” Well, the problem with that statement is that Saddam was not being asked to disarm conventional weapons, but rather weapons of mass destruction. That was the demand. Get rid of your chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. And here is Bush telling everyone that Saddam did not disarm–after it has become painfully clear that he had disarmed! Maybe not intentionally, probably because of Clinton’s sanctions and other actions, but there were no weapons of mass destruction. So what is Bush saying that Saddam refused to do?

Bush added that the Saddam “was systematically deceiving the inspectors.” How? By hiding nonexistent WMD? Again, Bush is trying to be slick here, implying, claiming in a roundabout fashion that Saddam did have WMD when the inspectors were sent in. The fact is, Saddam was actually telling the truth when he said he didn’t have them–much to everyone’s surprise. Bush could get away with saying, well we thought he had them, but instead goes whole hog and implies that Iraq did indeed have WMD at that time.

A little later, Bush even confused Hussein with bin Laden: “Of course, we’re after Saddam Hussein — I mean, bin Laden.”

Kerry, in his rebuttal, made a statement that struck me as being strange; about Iraq, he said, “And we’ve got weapons of mass destruction crossing the border every single day, and they’re blowing people up.” I noted this in my live coverage, and it remains a bit strange to me now. Charitably, one can presume that Kerry meant that conventional weapons are pouring into Iraq but that the effect they have is equal to mass destruction in their harm to our soldiers. But it’s still strange, and I’m kind of surprised that more wasn’t made of it, especially by Republicans, later on.

Bush, naturally, ignored what had been clearly stated in criticizing Kerry: “I don’t think we want to get to how he’s going to pay for all these promises. It’s like a huge tax gap — anyway, that’s for another debate.” Aside from sounding flustered, he also seemed deaf; Kerry had just stated that “long before President Bush and I get a tax cut — and that’s who gets it — long before we do, I’m going to invest in homeland security, and I’m going to make sure we’re not cutting COPS programs in America, and we’re fully staffed in our firehouses, and that we protect the nuclear and chemical plants.” What part of that was not clear? Kerry would take the tax cuts away from the millionaires and billionaires to pay for it, while keeping middle-class tax cuts in place. Does anyone really have a problem with that?

Meanwhile, Bush’s claims that he’s spent a lot of money on security were flawed; he claimed, for example, that “We spent $3.1 billion for fire and police.” However, precious little of that amount has actually reached fire and police services–the states have intercepted the money and are using it to pay for any number of other programs mandated by Washington D.C. but not paid for, i.e. “unfunded mandates.”

And then Bush claimed that he was also funding Iraq security: “Let me first tell you that the best way for Iraq to be safe and secure is for Iraqi citizens to be trained to do the job. And that’s what we’re doing. We got 100,000 trained now, 125,000 by the end of this year, over 200,000 by the end of next year.” Except, of course, that it’s not true.

I noted this in my live coverage, and indeed Bush’s claims do not check out. Out of the 90,000 police on the streets, only about 10% have training, and few in the military are trained :

The Pentagon documents show that of the nearly 90,000 people now in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. Another 46,176 are listed as “untrained,” and it will be July 2006 before the administration reaches its goal of a 135,000-strong, fully trained police force.

Six Army battalions have had “initial training,” while 57 National Guard battalions, 896 soldiers in each, are still being recruited or “awaiting equipment.” Just eight Guard battalions have reached “initial (operating) capability,” according to the documents.

Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee estimated that 22,700 Iraqi personnel have received enough training to make them “minimally effective at their tasks.”

Another example of the glib falsehoods that Bush hopes will go unnoticed.

That’s about all I can handle tonight. I’ll try to get back to more of this later–it’s just that there is so much of this to go over. Check out Media Matters for commentary on media fact-checking, and the DNC has a list of the top 20 “misleading statements” made by Bush in the debate.