:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 9.30.2004 ::
:: "Politically Speaking" ::
What's at Stake in the First Debate
By Mara Liasson
From NPR
When George W. Bush and John Kerry square off tonight in Coral Gables, Fla., it will be their first face-to-face encounter and the voters' first chance to see the two men side by side. Instead of watching short clips of each man attacking the other, pitching to big crowds of enthusiastic supporters, viewers will see the two up close in a neutral setting, performing without a net.
The results could be enormously important for the outcome of the campaign. The debates have been key events in five of the last seven presidential campaigns (dating back to 1976), and at a minimum they set the mood and momentum for the closing weeks.
But this won't be a classic debate in the sense of a true unbridled exchange. The rules the two campaigns agreed to ensure that what we'll hear is much of what we've been hearing for the last several weeks on the stump, except with more focus on a subject (foreign policy in the first debate) and with the intervention of a moderator (Jim Lehrer of PBS).
But there should be two very different views the reality right now in Iraq. Kerry will continue to insist that Mr. Bush's misguided policies in Iraq have created chaos and higher American casualties. He will say that in a second term, Mr. Bush would be fixated on Iraq and diverted from bigger terrorist threats -- including Osama bin Laden.
Kerry, although not the get-out-of-Iraq-now candidate, is emphasizing that he has a plan to get Americans out of Iraq in four years and that Mr. Bush has none. For his part, the president will continue the attacks on Kerry that have proved effective so far in the summer and fall. He will say that Kerry's past statements on Iraq are contradictory and incoherent and that electing such a man will put Americans in greater peril.
Polls show that the incumbent has a solid lead (although still in single digits in most polls) going into the first debate. But they also show something else, something that seems counter-intuitive and that poses a more difficult challenge to Kerry.
The conundrum is this: While more voters agree with Kerry's assessment of the Iraq situation right now, they still prefer Mr. Bush because of his attributes of "leadership." Even though more voters think Iraq has not been worth the cost in American lives and dollars, they are not ready to dismiss the president as punishment unless they have sufficient confidence in (and personal preference for) the alternative.
Read more here.
posted by me
:: 5:40:00 PM [+] ::
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