I Hate Bush and So Do You

October 26: Following the three Gore-Bush debates, the first of which losing the ratings battle to the debut of FOX’s Dark Angel series.

Ooooo! Scary Presidential debates! In 3-D!

So I’m watching the presidential debates, unlike 98% of the viewing audience, which instead preferred to watch baseball, Dark Angel, or 90 minutes of static. As usual, viewers complained that the debates were boring. But these debates were far more exciting than those of 1996...although I admit that’s like comparing the tastes of conola oil and motor oil.

The first debate was a solid victory for Gore, who overshadowed Bush so much that it took several examinations of the video tape to ascertain that Bush had, in fact, showed up. And the only evidence that Bush even said anything was provided by Gore, who kept sighing as if Bush were an eight-year-old child, instead of a 52-year-old governor who merely has the reading level of an eight-year-old.

Gore stole the show in two ways. The first was his ability to lie as if truth distortion were an Olympic event: “Not only have we balanced the budget and reduced crime, but I once put eight golf balls in my mouth at one time. These are not my figures, these are the governor’s!” The second was the massive use of rouge on his cheeks, which made it appear as if he were debating Mayor McCheese on how best to handle the Hamburglar.

Gore’s apparent strategy was to repeat everything several times as if voters suffered from some mass attention deficit disorder. I suspect that if you ran a computer program to condense Gore’s pitch into a single sentence, it would probably read like this: “The top 1% of taxpayers should be put in a lock box to preserve prescription drugs for our environment’s children.”  Bush’s performance can be summed up by the byword of his campaign: “Duh.”

The next debate was the VP debate, which I’ll quickly summarize and then move on:

Lieberman: Blah blah God blah family blah blah mother-in-law joke that bombed blah.

Cheney: Yakkity yak military yakkity taxes yak yak I sort of look like everyone’s physics teacher yak.

For the next two debates, Bush used an interesting (and surprisingly successful) strategy: Find out what issues the public likes and then pretend to support those issues, too. Consider this exchange, complete with Bush’s omissions in brackets:

Gore: I support hate crimes legislation. [“I need the black vote.”]

Bush: I agree with the vice-president. [“Except I don’t.”]

Lehrer (almost incredulously): You agree with the vice-president on hate crimes? [“Who are you trying to s**t?!”]

Bush: Sure! We have them in Texas! [“Except I opposed the statute tooth and nail, until it looked sure to pass; then I merely opposed extending it to cover homosexuals and told supporters that they were wasting my time and theirs by lobbying me for my support.”]

Lehrer: Anything to add, Mr. Vice-president?

Gore: Please like me.

It was seen as a solid victory for Bush, perhaps because of Gore’s strategy of wanting to look friendlier. Viewers were especially put off by his attempt to French-kiss Jim Lehrer.

Shocking as it may seem, Gore changed his personality again for the third debate; whereas Bush continued with his new strategy of denial, such as when he was asked if were “proud” of his record of executions in Texas: “No, sir, I’m not proud of any record.” [“And nor should I be! Although I do brag about it every chance I get, and I even went as far as to mock the pleas of a condemned woman. Lordie, how I love it when they squeal!”]

Bush, on the question of affirmative action: “I’m not for it if it means quotas-- I’m for affirmative access!” [“Okay, even I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about now.”]

But Bush’s lowest point had to be...and as Dave Barry says, I swear I’m not making this up...when Bush looked at the voters and said, “This election is about who can get things done!  It’s not about issues, or whose plan is better!” I suppose that’s true; if elections were about merit, he’d be changing oil instead of drilling for it.

Gore’s strategy this time was to remind everyone that he served in Vietnam and Bush did not, even if it meant cramming unrelated subjects together: “You know, when I was a reporter in Vietnam, I thought a lot about voter apathy and farm subsidies.” Gore launched several subtle attacks on Bush, at one point sneaking up behind Bush in an apparent attempt to goose him. Everyone went back to disliking Gore, which meant that the third debate was a solid victory.

So those of you who missed the debates missed a great season. Of course, it’s silly to talk about who “won” or “lost” a debate. Debates are about the exchanging of ideas, and to treat them as if they were sporting events is degrading to the foundation of democracy...oh, whom am I kidding? Gore won, scoring 6 to 5 in overtime.

I’m done.