Los Angeles Times
October 14, 2004
President Bush's handlers tried to minimize the significance of his three
debates with Sen. John F. Kerry, exaggerating Bush's lack of debating skills
while insisting that he is the stronger leader. The trouble with this spin is
that tens of millions of Americans watching the debates didn't feel they were
watching a mere academic exercise. Stitched together, these three extraordinary
exchanges amounted to a powerful indictment of the president's leadership.
Even on foreign policy and national security, supposedly the
president's strong suit, Kerry had Bush on the defensive in the first debate,
attacking him for fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq while failing to capture
Osama bin Laden and to prevent the acceleration of nuclear weapons programs in
Iran and North Korea.
That the president was on the defensive again
Wednesday night, in a debate devoted to domestic policy, is less surprising.
Again, Kerry made a compelling case that, for all his plain-talkin' West Texas
bravado, Bush had faile d to lead. When asked about healthy budget surpluses
turning to huge deficits on his watch, the president said the nation needed
"fiscal sanity in the halls of the Congress" in a plaintive tone that suggested
he had as much influence over what happened there as he did over Jacques Chirac.
But Bush's loyal Republican lieutenants are running both chambers of Congress.
Moreover, as Kerry noted in debate No. 2, Bush is about to become the first
president since the 19th century who failed to veto a single bill in an entire
four-year term. That is an abrogation of a president's power to impose "fiscal
sanity" on Congress.
Bush's weakness as a leader was also manifest in
his response to a question about why he failed to renew the ban on assault
weapons, which he professed to support. He basically said he didn't have the
votes on Capitol Hill, even though the ban would have passed had GOP leaders
allowed a vote, something Bush should have ordered.
That isn't to say
that Kerry has all the answers, or that Bush's charm was not in evidence,
particularly in Wednesday's meeting. Kerry was in full pander mode on Social
Security, and Bush was both profound and sincere in discussing his religious
faith and its influence on his policies. But overall, Bush doesn't have a
strong hand, and both his opponent and his advisors know it. Bush led the
nation to a war that much of the rest of the world, as well as a small majority
of Americans, now thinks was unjustified. He wrecked the Treasury's finances
with reckless tax cuts that still failed to prevent him from becoming the first
president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs.
It's no wonder the Bush team, hobbled by such a record, acts as if it can win
only if voters treat this election as a referendum on Kerry's fitness for
office. It should be clear by now that Kerry is not for some Stalinist
government healthcare system, that he won't give Paris a veto over U.S. foreign
policy and that he doesn't think terrorism is merely a nuisance. H e was
thoughtful and firm in all three debates, despite his enduring stiffness. The
shrillness of the Bush camp's attacks on Kerry betrays an unbecoming
desperation, and adds to the sense that the challenger came out the convincing
winner.