Life's Persistent Questions

Who's more polite?

People had been focusing a lot on the catch-phrases during the debate, like "freedom," "strong," "mixed messages," "misled," and "alliance." So both men still can't help the bad habit of making sound bites. But how about this one:

Bush refered to Kerry as "Senator" only three times. Twice during the question when he was asked about Kerry's character. And one more in his closing statement. In all other cases (20), he called him his "Opponent."

Kerry referred to Bush always as "the President." I lost count at 30, a third of way through the transcript.

A couple of points. This is another piece of evidence that Bush's team made a mistake by making the first debate on foreign policies. This focuses the attention on the president--Bush has to repeat what HE did, and Kerry is only too happy to keep the focus on Bush. It's one thing to attack Kerry's position on war behind his back, but during a debate you have to talk more about what I DID, not what HE SAID.

Second, I know I'm nitpicking here, but would it have killed Bush to call Kerry a SENATOR? Doesn't the Republicans want to remind people that Kerry is in the Senate for 20 years without a distinguished record? Bush could have been more polite and political in this.

posted by hedgehog @ 4:05 AM