LuxFX / They Think They’re Newsworthy

Presidential Debate Gem #1:

Boy, we got a good laugh out of that one! The first presidential debate of 2004 is over. Did you watch? What did you think?

Personally, I was reassured. I think tonight is going to seriously help Kerry out of this slump of his. He’s on the offensive. He’s smart. He’s rational. He’s able to say a lot in his allotted time. Bush, on the other hand, speaks very slowly. His monkey trainers have taught him how to speak in order to sound ‘genuine.’ Well, unfortunately for him, Bush’s monkey trainers interpretted ‘genuine’ to mean ’slow, with lots of pauses.’ That meant that word for word, Kerry probably said twice as much as Bush did tonight. That’s going to count. Bush sounded slow and inarticulate.

Every one of Bush’s answers sounded pretty much the same. That’s not to say that Kerry never repeated himself. But next to Kerry, Bush looked like a one-trick pony. He said the same two or three things again, and again, and again. Was it informative? No. It wasn’t even good television. It was boring. I thought Kerry was supposed to be the dry one.

Kerry has the extra finesse of nearly always hitting his time right on the mark. Bush frequently went over by a few seconds, and most of the time sounded like he was cutting off a thought prematurely. Even worse, Bush stopped under the mark multiple times, leaving awkward pauses with Bush resorting to a gesture as if to say, “go ahead, I don’t the capacity for an additional thought on this matter.” Kerry wrapped up nicely with solid statements, as if he was reading a well rehearsed script timed right on the mark every time. But he even accomplished this on his rebutals. From somebody who has done times dramatic readings before, I found this especially impressive. But I also think it is very effective. Kerry used his time wisely, not only to say as much as he could, but to conclude on a summary statement. The audience, I believe, had a much better grasp of his arguments this way.

I’m feeling better than I did a few hours ago. Much better.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 30th, 2004 at 9:54 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.