Must See TV

August 24, 2004 12:35 PM

Tivo Time!
The major news networks just got snubbed it seems. Whatever your position this is guaranteed to be entertaining. Even my 'newsfilter' link has a few chuckles! Don't miss the fun tonight!
posted by nofundy (77 comments total)

Makes better sense to me for Kerry to get interviewed by The Daily Show than an old standby like Nightline. Koppel sounded totally pissed off too, like a little old world bitch. Look alive, Teddy, the world's changing all around you.

Jon Stewart makes bad news funny and conducts a better interview than anyone else on TV today. Kerry is smart for using The Daily Show as a platform.
posted by fenriq at 12:44 PM on August 24, 2004

Wow. That columnist's "voice" is pretty annoying, isn't it?

"A lot of television viewers -- more, quite frankly, than I'm comfortable with -- get their news from the Comedy Channel on a program called 'The Daily Show,' " "Nightline" anchor Ted Koppel whined to his viewers in a telecast from the Democratic convention in Boston. ... They actually think they're coming closer to the truth with [the] show."

Ted Koppel can nibble my left nad. Does anyone else get the feeling that corporate media is this enormous black hole--when it sucks you in, it takes all the light with it. Do people like Koppel really think they're getting to the "truth" of the issues?
posted by jpoulos at 12:49 PM on August 24, 2004

Of course Arsenio Hall did not ask tough questions, which Stewart does, we pointed out.

Bwah! I loooove The Daily Show, and can't fault Kerry for going on it. But to say that Jon Stewart is going to pose the tough questions is hilarious. This will be softball city.
posted by pardonyou? at 12:53 PM on August 24, 2004

There's a deeper overview of the Koppel-Stewart interview on Slate, and a complete transcript here.

It's very, very hard to tell--without seeing them interact--how exactly these lines were delivered. Most importantly, you can't tell if Koppel is pissed off or bemused. He could've just been joking as he was ending the interview at the planned time, or he could have been cutting Stewart off short for having called him on not being what he thought he was.

The Slate article does mention that Koppel was apparently supposed to be on the Daily Show the very next night, and didn't appear, with no explanation.

It seems to me that one thing that's definitely happening is that Koppel is sort of insisting that Stewart's basically been drafted into the ranks of journalism, just because he's become a popular source for news, and that therefore he's got to admit it and start acting like Koppel's idea of a journalist. (All while Stewart's pointing out that Koppel's idea of a "journalist" isn't exactly all it's cracked up to be.)

And on preview, py, I think you might be right, but I think this is going to be a watershed for Stewart--whether he's going to sheath his claws for the sake of a big "get". If you saw his interview with Bonilla (the head of the Republican hit squad in Boston), Stewart was ruthless. He's certainly brutally frank about Kerry night to night--let's see if he's got the guts to confront the guy face-to-face.
posted by LairBob at 12:59 PM on August 24, 2004

Wow. That columnist's "voice" is pretty annoying, isn't it?

No.

I lubs Lisa de Moraes.

I mean, she writes about TV, for heaven's sake. Often about reality TV. How serious could she possibly be?
posted by jacquilynne at 1:03 PM on August 24, 2004

I'm looking forward to this.

If you compare the appearance of Clinton flogging his book on the Letterman show vs. Clinton on the Daily show, he seemed much more bland and mainstream and inoffensive while being interviewed by Letterman and edgier on Stewart's watch. He actually allowed himself to show some ire against the Republican party-- maybe it's the difference in viewer numbers and demographics.

I'm sure I love the Daily Show so much just because they so blatantly ratify my feelings. Sometimes it's good to be able to relax among your own kind.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 1:13 PM on August 24, 2004

If you saw his interview with Bonilla (the head of the Republican hit squad in Boston), Stewart was ruthless.

I don't doubt that he has it in him. I just think he's so lodged into outrage mode against the Republicans (not without justification), that his questions of Kerry will be along the lines of: "These Swift Boat Veterans weren't even in your boat, and some of them weren't in the area at the time. How fucked up is that?" (and the comments from his producer along those lines certainly suggest that's where they're coming from). His interview with Michael Moore, iirc, was along the same lines. This is certainly his prerogative -- he hasn't hidden the fact that he's not an official "newsman."

I could be wrong, and kind of hope I am -- I'd like to see Kerry face some difficult questions and see if he rises to the occasion. Hell, if Jon could pin him down to something resembling an actual, specific plan for Iraq, that would be newsworthy itself.
posted by pardonyou? at 1:13 PM on August 24, 2004

Yeah, but... Bonilla came across like a half-wit party hack (which is what he is). He couldn't think on his feet (at all), and cratered when he was intellectually unable to move past his talking points. Stewart called bullshit, and justifiably so (just as he did when he made Wolf Blitzer look like a complete fool... not hard to do that, I guess). Contrast this to the deference he shows when he's talking to people that have more serious intellects like Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Richard Clarke and even Newt Gingrich. John's a helluva a genial guy, but I don't this he has the intellectual or journalistic chops to match up with or call bullshit on John Kerry.
posted by psmealey at 1:17 PM on August 24, 2004

The Daily Show questions everything. That's what used to define journalism. If Koppel honestly doesn't see that mainstream journalism has been reduced to a high-fidelity message transmission apparatus, he's even more out of touch than his coiffure would suggest.

Sometimes it's good to be able to relax among your own kind.
I couldn't agree more. The Daily Show is about the only news-related thing on television that gives me hope.
posted by ulotrichous at 1:19 PM on August 24, 2004

It's very, very hard to tell--without seeing them interact--how exactly these lines were delivered.

Koppel was OK up until the end, when he realized that Stewart's comment about "Coke and Pepsi talking about beverage truth" was basically referring to Nightline (and all shows like it). Koppel was ice cold from that point on, and the interview was over. Stewart tried to laugh it off with his self-disparagement crutch , but Koppel was quite mad, imo.

on preview: i think you're wrong, pardonyou? but we'll see. i've ripped Stewart for being too softball with *all* his political guests, but he's gotten better over the past year. i don't think he'll be giving John "Let's Send in 40,000 more Troops" Kerry an easy ride. we'll just have to see ...
posted by mrgrimm at 1:21 PM on August 24, 2004

TONIGHT: Senator Norm Coleman!

The Daily Show's webpage apparently didn't get the memo yet...
posted by jacobsee at 1:24 PM on August 24, 2004

Outraged that the national discussion is about irrelevant events of 30 years ago, high-profile TV show books candidate to discuss that outrage & those events. Check.

I'm a Jon Stewart fan and share his (presumed) anger about all this, but every second talking about this brouhaha is one less second focused on Bush's waging a pre-emptive war based on deception of Congress and the country. I mean, Karl Rove is loving this.

On preview: Norm Coleman was on there last week. And got a free pass from JS, by the way, when he denied that Bush-Cheney had required loyalty oaths of rally attendees.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:30 PM on August 24, 2004

Yes, but what implications does this story have for the poor people of Portugal?
posted by crunchland at 1:32 PM on August 24, 2004

Hey, the Olympics are on TV tonight too. Set your VCRs.
posted by Witty at 1:32 PM on August 24, 2004

Yes, but what implications does this story have for the poor people of Portugal?

Goddammit, THIS is the sort of hard-hitting question we need more often. I demand full coverage! And what of Mali? For the love of god, what of Mali?
posted by aramaic at 1:44 PM on August 24, 2004

Jon Stewart is not so much partisan in his treatment of guests as unwilling to suffer fools gladly. He was extraordinarily courteous to Bill Kristol, for example. And he was all up in John McCain's stuff when McCain was on (I believe he even said to McCain "I'm voting for you").
posted by Sidhedevil at 1:48 PM on August 24, 2004

I think of Jon Stewart's interviews as intelligent rather than hard-hitting. He's not Barbera Walters, out there trying to make celebrities cry or make JonBenet's parent's admit they did it. He wants to make people laugh for God's sake.

Guests who sit down on the couch and act like self-righteous blow-hards and spew unfathomable ignorance (Just because we didn't find any Weapons of Mass Destruction doesn't mean they didn't have them. And they would've used them too! Yeah!) get their hyposcrisy thrown back in their face; guests who express cogent, sincere views about topics of importance get to chuckle while Jon makes fun of himself and sings their praises.
posted by junkbox at 2:12 PM on August 24, 2004

Outraged that the national discussion is about irrelevant events of 30 years ago

Maybe the Democrats shouldn't have made it the cornerstone of their convention and Kerry's poorly run campaign then?
posted by Mick at 2:18 PM on August 24, 2004

but every second talking about this brouhaha is one less second focused on Bush's waging a pre-emptive war based on deception of Congress and the country.


"Knowing then what he knows today about the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Kerry still would have voted to authorize the war and "in all probability" would have launched a military attack to oust Hussein by now if he were president, Kerry national security adviser Jamie Rubin said in an interview Saturday."
posted by techgnollogic at 2:22 PM on August 24, 2004

Does anyone else get the feeling that corporate media is this enormous black hole--when it sucks you in, it takes all the light with it. Do people like Koppel really think they're getting to the "truth" of the issues?

Is The Daily Show not also part of the corporate media, being on a Viacom-owned network and all?
posted by gyc at 2:25 PM on August 24, 2004

Maybe the Democrats shouldn't have made it the cornerstone of their convention and Kerry's poorly run campaign then?

Yeah, it's a shame how Kerry's campaign has fucked up so badly as to make him the frontrunner and all.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:28 PM on August 24, 2004

Maybe the Democrats shouldn't have made it the cornerstone of their convention and Kerry's poorly run campaign then?

And perhaps that woman shouldn't have worn that dress or she wouldn't have gotten raped. Let's blame the victim some more. This smear was coming whether or not Kerry would have used his veteran status in the campaign. The Bush campaign said as much so. To think otherwise is to not have followed the Bush family and their campaign tactics: Willie Horton, Dukakis, McCain's black love child, et al.
posted by plemeljr at 2:32 PM on August 24, 2004

i'll admit, techgno, i saw that (jeez, it must have been a few weeks ago), and said "wtf is he thinking?" (there must have been a Mefi thread ... guess not ...)

his stance on invading Iraq might be politically consistent (i think Cato hits it square), but it's going to hurt him. badly.

on reconsideration, i'd be very surprised if Stewart hits Kerry with anything other than softballs.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:41 PM on August 24, 2004

Does anyone else get the feeling that corporate media is this enormous black hole--when it sucks you in, it takes all the light with it. Do people like Koppel really think they're getting to the "truth" of the issues?

Is The Daily Show not also part of the corporate media, being on a Viacom-owned network and all?


Viacom and AOLTimeWarner. ComedyCentral is part owned by HBO.

I guess "corporate media" only sucks when you disagree with it.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 2:48 PM on August 24, 2004

You know, there's something that's both entertaining and edifying, without claming to be a source of information of its own - it's called satire, or just commentary. If Daily (or another Stewart project) went to some other channel - or, more likely, into syndication - when the contract expires, being outside a comedy channel would clarify somewhat that it's more than just entertainment.
posted by abcde at 2:52 PM on August 24, 2004

The Daily Show's still crap. I find it amazingly annoying when people say things like "it's the only show that tells teh truth!!11" -- it's a comedy show, and a lousy one at that. If Stewart asks one question that makes Kerry flinch for even a second, I'll eat my hat.
posted by reklaw at 2:53 PM on August 24, 2004

I know where you live.
posted by abcde at 3:01 PM on August 24, 2004

FIGHT! FIGHT WITH KNIVES!
posted by solistrato at 3:03 PM on August 24, 2004

"corporate media" only sucks when you disagree with it.

Well put.
posted by tomplus2 at 3:12 PM on August 24, 2004

Triumph the insult comic dog for president!
posted by louigi at 3:50 PM on August 24, 2004

The Daily Show is a great show...FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!

_{Oh, wait--I was simultaneously possessed by the spirits of Triumph and reklaw.}
posted by LairBob at 3:59 PM on August 24, 2004

I just read the transcript on Wonkette. Kerry did very well, as I could tell from the transcript, which can be very misleading, granted.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:01 PM on August 24, 2004

Interestingly enough, abcde, in Canada, the Daily Show is shown on network TV. At midnight, mind you, which is not the bastion of serious journalism, but on network TV nonetheless.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:02 PM on August 24, 2004

Are we not supposed to link to Wonkette?
posted by jaronson at 4:13 PM on August 24, 2004

No, I was just lazy. But how hard is she to find? :)
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:17 PM on August 24, 2004

"To the extent that my own comments have contributed to misunderstanding on this issue. . . . I never should have said the phrase 'in all probability' because that's not Kerry's position and he's never said it," Rubin said in a statement. "That was my mistake." [Washington Post]
posted by punishinglemur at 4:34 PM on August 24, 2004

Just read the transcript myself...your hat is safe, reklaw.
posted by LairBob at 4:49 PM on August 24, 2004

His staff flip-flops too?
posted by techgnollogic at 4:53 PM on August 24, 2004

Steve: media ownership update - the Viacom/ Time-Warner partnership behind Comedy Central is no more. TW sold its share to Viacom and CC now takes its marching orders from the MTV Networks division. Apply your choice of conspiracy theories appropriately.

And now that the SciFi Channel is owned by NBC, the next Olympics will include jet-pack racing and phaser shooting events.
posted by wendell at 5:06 PM on August 24, 2004

maybe it's that his staff wears flip-flops.
posted by zorrine at 5:11 PM on August 24, 2004

Like they're a bunch of hippies or something? That's probably taking it a bit far.
posted by techgnollogic at 5:19 PM on August 24, 2004

I just read the transcript and I hope Stewart put some ice on his arm after loping all those softballs.

JON STEWART:
Sir, I'm sorry. Were you or were you not in Cambodia on Christmas Eve? (LAUGHTER) They said-- you said five miles. They said three. (LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE) No, I-- (UNINTEL PHRASE). I think that's a very interesting--
JOHN KERRY:
(UNINTEL) look at that profile.
JON STEWART:
No, believe me, I know.
JOHN KERRY:
I'm all Jew. You may be 1/4. I got everything. (LAUGHTER)
JON STEWART:
The-- you know, again, it-- it-- it's the type of thing--
JOHN KERRY:
Yeah.
JON STEWART:
--in-- in the 2000 election it was an election I think the country didn't realize how important it was going to be. And yet it was a relatively substantive discussion. I can recall in the-- in the debates there was a lot of talk about funding Social Security and-- education and all these things. This election is clearly the most important one of our lifetime.

Ask him the tough question and then chance the topic when you realize he 's going down in flames.
posted by Mick at 5:34 PM on August 24, 2004

Mick: How about some context? The Cambodia question was a reference to the Republicans changing the topic from health care. Try it this way:
JOHN KERRY: ... George Bush doesn't wanna talk about the real issues. I mean, what's he gonna do? Come out and say we lost 1.8 million jobs?

Four million Americans lost their healthcare. We're going backwards on the environment. We-- angered everybody in the world.
JON STEWART:
Sir, I'm sorry. Were you or were you not in Cambodia on Christmas Eve? (LAUGHTER)


Jeez.
posted by bashos_frog at 7:13 PM on August 24, 2004

Is it on tonight or was it already on?

I love Stewart with politicians--he plays dumb and curious, and they have actually talk, usually not just repeat talking points. (As opposed to someone like Judy Woodruff, who plays dumb, and feeds the talking points to her guests.)
posted by amberglow at 7:21 PM on August 24, 2004

oop-have to actually talk...
posted by amberglow at 7:21 PM on August 24, 2004

>I guess "corporate media" only sucks when you disagree with it

Oh please. The daily show isn't a news media show, it mocks news media. Its satirical. If anything it points out the very real problems of media bias because at the end of the day the writers must produce laughter and pointing out hypocrites delivers the goods. The side-effect of this is that talking-points are exposed, liars get mocked, etc.

See also: lack of funny "conservative" comedians.

Not to mention, the fact that this thread is dominated by our token conservatives shows how scared they must be of Kerry coming on this show, thus more or less validating what Stewart and company have been saying about the right-leaning media.

Looks like America's short-lived post-9/11 love-affair with all things conservative is ending and ending badly if the man who (according to recent polls) will be president is going on a show which has one gag and one gag only: the real news stinks, let us count the ways.
posted by skallas at 8:04 PM on August 24, 2004

Just got done watching. Kerry and Stewart aren't the comedy duo of the new century but it wasn't a bad interview. A little bizarre, mostly. I wish Stewart didn't interrupt Kerry when he started on a few topics, but possibly that was deliberate; to keep things relatively mild and accessible to the audience of people not knowing what the hell to do, or which direction to think.

A moment in television history though, certainly. Fuck you meet the press "I've met the press and they're not really worth meeting" - John Stewart

(sure I messed up the quote but it was funny)
posted by Peter H at 8:32 PM on August 24, 2004

Gawd, that was all kinds of awful. Huge missed opportunity for Kerry, who just doesn't do chit chat well at all. And my secret boyfriend Jon was neither funny nor incisive. Bleah.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:34 PM on August 24, 2004

it wasn't that great at all, but they seemed to be having fun. Jon was clearly nervous, i think.
posted by amberglow at 8:40 PM on August 24, 2004

Ask him the tough question and then chance the topic when you realize he 's going down in flames.

Right. Um, who exactly is going down in flames?

It looks like it was a good enough performance, politically. They were softballs, yes, but it was still a test of Kerry's ability to catch them and throw them back with ease. You can see (in the transcript, anyway, I didn't see the show itself) where he wants to go into the outrage of all this stuff but remembers to twist back to his talking point. I'd love to see George W try to handle equivalent "softballs" like these from Stewart.
posted by soyjoy at 8:49 PM on August 24, 2004

Personally I thought that Kerry came off well. He didn't seem as stiff as the comedians (including Jon Stewart) make him out to be. He also got some real applause from the audience on a few points as well.
posted by rks404 at 8:55 PM on August 24, 2004

oh god DAMMIT why didn't i obsessively log on to metafilter earlier than 11:45 so that i'd know this was on and plan on watching it? ah hell.

well, they always replay 'em the next day. or perhaps i can find a semi-bootlegged "archival copy" of the video somewhere on this vast interweb-thingy...
posted by caution live frogs at 8:59 PM on August 24, 2004

Viacom and AOLTimeWarner. ComedyCentral is part owned by HBO.

AOL-TW sold its half a year ago; the network is solely owned by Viacom. HBO wouldn't own CC anyway, as HBO is itself a subsidiary of TW.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 9:04 PM on August 24, 2004

CLF - Repeats at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:07 PM on August 24, 2004

Jon Stewart is not so much partisan in his treatment of guests as unwilling to suffer fools gladly.

And bless him for it.
posted by rushmc at 9:15 PM on August 24, 2004

Wow, the real story here isn't Kerry its Getty Oil vs. Faiza. Seeing him wearing that flag shirt and holding his beef and chedder sticks at end while they were tearing down his business broke my heart. That wasn't funny, is was one of the saddest things I've seen on the "news" in a long time. Why isn't this story getting play elsewhere?

note:the above sounds crazy if you havent seen the episode
posted by skallas at 9:30 PM on August 24, 2004

skallas - didn't see the segment, but it sounds like the guy who was featured in a Talk of the Town item in The New Yorker a month or so ago.
posted by soyjoy at 10:51 PM on August 24, 2004

CunningLinguist, I agree. Though I went from the anyone-but-Bush camp to being quite pro-Kerry after I got to know more about him, it always surprises me when people say he did this speech well or that interview well.

Tonight in particular, both myself and my less-politically-inclined co-viewers agreed that he came off as awkward and forced throughout. Sure, he got applause, but so would anyone saying bad things about Bush on the Daily Show. To us, it really seemed he was more concerned with getting to various talking points than answering the questions that were asked — valid as the talking points may be, it comes off as the same political dodginess that everybody hates.

On the plus side, I liked that his sense of humor was genuine and genuinely funny, and there were a few really choice quotes that at least look really good in print. Shame that it was such a poor showing, though...
posted by rafter at 11:11 PM on August 24, 2004

(soyjoy, yep, same guy. This was admittedly the first time I had every actually sat and watched the Daily Show, but the piece was hilarious. I'll have to tune in again in the future. For the interested, The New Yorker piece itself is substantially more in-depth than the article skallas linked.)
posted by rafter at 11:15 PM on August 24, 2004

(Wait, it's a completely different story than skallas linked. But worth reading. If my memory serves, it seems the New Yorker piece was the one covered on the show.)
posted by rafter at 11:20 PM on August 24, 2004

Whoops, rafters link is the correct one. Looks like theres more than one guy pissed at Getty. Here's a videocapture of the piece. You need the divx codec to watch it.
posted by skallas at 11:41 PM on August 24, 2004

I have to agree that the Getty piece was the star of the show, Kerry or no Kerry. I had read about this guy and he came off as kind of combative and tough and what-the-hell. In the video piece though, he just about broke my heart, especially when they were smashing all his equipment. Someone needs to help this guy out. Save Inder Parmar!
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:34 AM on August 25, 2004

Kerry was getting softball questions from a friendly host in front of a friendly crowd on a show that has a friendly demographic audience. Still, it was a good performance. He was warm and personable, not stiff and boring. He was confident about winning the election without being cocky. I've been ABB all along, and I respect Kerry's record, but this appearance is the first time I felt like I like him. I'm getting the same "he's kind of cool, and he's going to win" feeling I got after seeing Clinton on the Arsenio Hall show during the 1992 campaign.

This was the most significant thing he said:

the President has won every debate he's ever had. People need to understand that. He beat Ann Richards. He beat Al Gore. So he's a good debater.

If this becomes the conventional wisdom, the debates will be a debacle for Bush.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:20 AM on August 25, 2004

I'm not sure why anyone thought Stewart would give Kerry 'tough' questions. Anyone who watches knows he will nail the occasional clueless representative that no one has really heard of(the gentleman from OK from the DNC response team comes to mind) but has always softballed every big star they ever got (Clinton, Tom Cruise, etc).

I don't think the softball was so much partisan as it was big guest gets easy questions.
posted by dig_duggler at 7:21 AM on August 25, 2004

I thought the ketchup question and the cambodia question was pretty damn tough. ;)
posted by Peter H at 8:21 AM on August 25, 2004

My favorite part:

JON STEWART:
When you campaign, you know, the other day your campaign crossed paths with George Bush's campaign.
JOHN KERRY:
I know. . . . We never saw each other.
JON STEWART:
At all?
JOHN KERRY:
No, no. The Secret Service aren't just guarding us from the other people.

Heh.
posted by onlyconnect at 8:25 AM on August 25, 2004

kirkaracha:

This was the most significant thing he said:

The President has won every debate he's ever had. People need to understand that. He beat Ann Richards. He beat Al Gore. So he's a good debater.

If this becomes the conventional wisdom, the debates will be a debacle for Bush.

I think you're right to point this out, although I think "debacle" be an overstatement. Nonetheless, there was a long piece in The Atlantic discussing the Bush v. Kerry debates and arguing that Bush is not only a very capable - if instinctive - debater to begin with, but one made all the better by his staff's giving him the underdog advantage in every debate.

By building up his opponents as patrician windbags (deservedly or not) and "aw-shucks"ing his way out of the conversation, all he has to do to win is look less bad than he's advertised himself. This part, of course, is somewhat well-known, but it's the "he's not so bad to start with" part that I found most interesting.

(link is for subscribers only, but includes the brief intro excerpted below)

Recently I saw an amazing piece of political video. It was ten-year-old footage of George W. Bush, and it changed my mind about an important aspect of the upcoming campaign. Because the President so rarely exposes himself to live, unscripted questioning, and because he has expressed himself so poorly the few times he has risked such exposure this year, the political establishment assumes that John Kerry has a big advantage in this fall's debates.

I'm not so sure. Bush has been far more skillful in his debating career than is generally appreciated, and his successes in that realm put his widely noted lack of eloquence in a different light. During his career George Bush's speaking style has changed significantly, which is why the tape from 1994 was so intriguing. But his underlying approach to political communication has been constant—and extremely effective.
posted by Sinner at 10:58 AM on August 25, 2004

That (excellent) Atlantic piece makes the interesting point that neither man has ever lost a debate.
posted by CunningLinguist at 12:55 PM on August 25, 2004

I was thinking of that Atlantic piece, and the impression I got from it was that Bush was a skilled debater against Ann Richards, but that he isn't up to the job of president and the pressure hurts his extemporaneous speaking.

Al Gore's dial-a-personality performance during the 2000 presidential debates was much more responsible than Bush's skill for Bush's "winning" the debate. Even so I felt that Gore won all three of the debates in terms of intelligence and consistency of argument, but lost in the public perception, which is what really matters. Kind of like how most people who listened to the Nixon-Kenenedy debate on the radio felt that Nixon won, while most people who watched on TV thought Kennedy won.

Kerry's comment is a reversal of Bush's lower-the-expectations game. If it catches on, Bush might actually be graded on his performance this time.

I'd like to see Kerry needle Bush any make him lose his cool during one of the debates. Bush seems increasingly tense and irritable when he's asked even marginally unfavorable questions.

I play in a rec soccer league, and one of the players I play against is very skilled, but a hothead who takes himself completely out of the game if a call doesn't go his way. When we play his team I tell my teammates to foul him on purpose. He gets pissed off and we don't worry about him the rest of the game.

neither man has ever lost a debate

Sure, but Kerry has won many more debates than Bush has. I think Kerry's list (Richards and Gore) is a complete list of Bush's debate opponents, while Kerry has won several campaigns, plus lots of court cases as a prosecutor.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:00 PM on August 25, 2004

will somebody please explain to me how you win a debate?
posted by Satapher at 3:45 PM on August 25, 2004

i mean, does the crowd have voting boxes?

"yes kerry's opinion is closer to THE ULTIMATE TRUTH than bush's on that one.... beeeep"
posted by Satapher at 3:49 PM on August 25, 2004

Satapher, I think that Kerry meant it, at least, to say that Bush won the elections that followed those debates. He beat Ann Richards when he challenged her for Governor of Texas, and, obviously, he beat Gore in 2000.

Even more, when you look at the poll results after both debates, Bush gained after them, even though most pundits called them for the opposition. To Kerry's point, the received wisdom is pretty clearly wrong--even though he avoids debates like the plague, he does manage to wield them to positive effect when he's forced to debate.
posted by LairBob at 4:16 PM on August 25, 2004

and, obviously, he beat Gore in 2000.

Actually...not so obvious.
posted by jpoulos at 7:20 PM on August 25, 2004

they made fun of the Swift Boat ads just now on the show tonight. : >
posted by amberglow at 8:10 PM on August 25, 2004

Well, OK, jp--I just meant more that "obviously, he's president, now."
posted by LairBob at 9:27 PM on August 25, 2004

Bush keeps "winning" debates because expectations are so low, which is why Kerry's jab was smart.

But holy god, I'm glad I missed the bit where he saluted the audience.

The other interesting thing in the Atlantic was the observation that no debate, save perhaps for Ford's Poland gaffe, has ever been won on what was said, but how it was said. I have little doubt Kerry will win on intellect, as Gore did in all three 2000 matchups, but Bush is very good at seeming regular guyish, and Kerry has a tendency towards prolixity and pomposity, so who knows how the score will go.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:30 PM on August 26, 2004

Anyone who can with a straight face say that Bush beat Gore in those debates is either quite insane or hopelessly partisan.

(I acknowledge that a large part of the public said they thought that he did...see above.)
posted by rushmc at 11:00 PM on August 26, 2004