[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

[bryant]

On CNN, they're citing unnamed conservative blogs as feeling Bush had a mixed performance. It's amusing to watch blogs get co-opted into the spin. General feeling of positive for Kerry from the CNN talking heads. Maybe the Corner; they're pretty dubious about how Bush did. CNN thinks Bush looks annoyed. Fox is not calling either man the winner. Fox picked up on how tired Bush looked and how much he sighed. Not to mention annoyed. They don't know if it was effective or not, but Ceci Connelly is calling the expression sour. They're admitting that Bush looked shorter due to the framing. Spin is fun.

Comments

[multiplexer.livejournal.com]

I should clearly GO POST AND GET INTO THE BLOG SPIN.

Except I'm way too stoned. Very sad.

I think Bush looked like a hunching gnome.

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

It was amusing watching the Fox folks gruuuudgingly admit Kerry might have done a little better. Lots of 'I'm surprised Bush didn't say this more', or 'I wonder why Bush didn't talk about that issue more.'

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the debate. I was gaming.

I remember the 2000 debates, though, and how by the end of the third one, Bush was basically curled up in a ball and crying (http://dir.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/10/18/debate/index.html).

Didn't matter in the end, y'know?

[merlinofchaos]

Are you a Daily Show stoned slacker?

[that-cad.livejournal.com]

As we all know, as Commander-in-Chief, Bush has far better things to do than, I dunno, discuss crap with people. He's got a nation to run and a war to fight, he shouldn't have to [sigh] waste his time [sigh] arguing shit with contenders for the amusement of the plebs.

[head58.livejournal.com]

I listened to WBZ's call in show on my drive from Revere to Hopkinton last night (about 11-midnight). I think I heard 2 callers who thought Bush won, or who were convinced he had done well. At one point the host was berating a caller who said Bush was slumped over the podium and that was "insulting to the American people" as spouting pure idiotic nonsense. Half an hour later, the host was saying the same thing.

I wonder if the parties organize "ringers" to call into these late night talk shows and spout how they were undecided but "Candidate X really slam-dunked it for me tonight." It's certainly what I would do to spin the post-debate reaction. But if so, Bush's crew was having a hard time getting through.

[bryant]

You betcha. Kerry: http://www.johnkerry.com/signup/mediacorps.php
and Bush had a seriously organized rapid response effort.

Which did not help when he sat there for ten seconds without speaking.

Heh.

[multiplexer.livejournal.com]

I may, in fact, be a Daily Show stoned slacker.

[multiplexer.livejournal.com]

"Vapor Lock."

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Ten seconds without speaking, when he had asked for the time. It's not even like he was floored by Lehrer's question, or by Kerry's answer to Lehrer's question: he had just listened to Kerry talk, he asked for a thirty-second response, and then he stared at the camera like a deer in headlights. Astonishing.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Well, the big media outlets have already spun last night's convincing (and generally admitted) Kerry victory into 'a draw', if my friendslist is any indication. I daresay in a couple of days Bush will be the God-Emperor again, ala the retrofitting of the 2000 debates.

[bryant]

Your friends list is full of pessimists who should be wary of self-fulfilling prophecies. Have you Democrats learned nothing over the last four years? Yeesh.

CNN is calling it a Kerry victory. The Internet polls (unscientific as they are) tilt overwhelmingly to Kerry. Cheer up!

[tavella.livejournal.com]

It's not the political types, who are pretty happy, but the more vague ones like foxmagic. Thus my cynical assessment than the nets got their disciplinary calls and another copy of the RNC talking points and fell into line.

[bryant]

Aw, come on. Scotrix is a sweetie but he's a pessimist of the highest order. And he's a Kerry supporter -- which is really the group I mean, the vaguely enthused Democrats who are incredibly quick to leap on any opportunity to feel like their candidate is doing badly.