Debate Coverage at Boot Prints and Lug Soles

Actually, I didn't watch the first debate. I didn't feel like I could be very effective cheerleading from here, I had other stuff to do, and the more Bush lies I hear, the testier I get. I wasn't in the mood for it. Having read the debate coverage on CNN, the Independent, the Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, it sounds like Kerry won, to no one's great surprise. I mean, really, what was Bush going to say? Things are actually going well in Iraq? That he's a good guy, as long as we overlook all of his glaring failures, lies, and incompetence to the extent he does? Or, his best ammunition yet: John Kerry changes his mind!

I mean, who changes his or her mind? I, for one, have never, ever changed my mind when I've decided new information or a change of context warrants it. Only some liberal weiner would do such a thing. Every single decision you make had better be set in stone. Otherwise, you won't ever have any credibility.

Wait a minute. That seems a little fishy. If you realize you got something wrong, isn't it an ethical and logical responsibility to change your mind? I would certainly feel compelled to do so, anyway. If Bush is right, you lose credibility by changing your mind when it's called for. He's making this one of the central issues of the election, so it stands to reason that the point of this credibility is to garner voter support. Hmm...who, then, is really altering his actions for the sake of the election? Anyone can tell me I'm wrong, of course, and I'm sure anyone who can still stomach Bush's assertions that he is a man of character would, but it seems to me that Kerry is really the one acting on conscience, and Bush is the weasel.

42 kids are dead today. Regardless of political agenda or the motives behind it, that's wrong. There's no baloney greater good justification for that. Those are 42 real people that don't have lives to live, now, and I can't begin to imagine how their parents, friends, and relatives feel. 42 isn't a number, and I'm not being overly dramatic or sensational. They are dead, and they were real people. That's not okay. There has to be a better way.