The Grand Slam

I felt, watching the debate last night, that John Kerry beat President Bush. Granted, I myself am not an objective viewer, but I found Kerry to be both incredibly human, in talking about his mother and in talking about his faith, while simultaneously having a significantly greater grasp of the nuts and bolts of the domestic issues than the President. In listening to the reactions of the people at MSNBC, which have genearally been to the right of everyone else, meaning they went hard saying Cheney won last week and some said Bush won on Friday, and I got the impression that they felt it was a draw, which I think goes for Kerry. He had the momentum, and I think showed very interesting parts of himself. Bush was persona #3, the frat boy with faith, the one Al Gore faced in 2000, not the smirking monkey of #1 or Yosemite Sam we saw in #2. A couple of thoughts on other things:

I've really been surprised by the indignation with which Republicans have gone after Kerry for bringing up Mary Cheney during the question about Homosexuality as a choice. John Kerry did not "out" Mary Cheney. Mary Cheney was onstage at Case Western Reserve last week with her partner, people who follow this race know she is gay. I think Kerry was simply using her as a real life example, especially of someone who might be conflicted because of a conservative upbringing. Check out Andrew Sullivan, a gay man himself, for his thoughts on the subject.

Josh Marshall, as well as David Frum of Washington Monthly, pointed out something very interesting about the Osama Bin Laden quote the President used in 2002 and denied saying last night. Its not that he either lied or forgot that is interesting, instead its the emphasis on the fact that since the Taliban was gone, there was no reason to worry about Bin Laden. In IR at Albion, we learned all about the differences between state and non-state actors. Republicans like Bush, and perhaps the Neo-Cons in the Pentagon and at State seem to believe that states, and only states matter. NSA's- Non-State Actors don't. Bin Laden, without the support of the Taliban, was no longer important, Bush seems to have been thinking. Well, its very possible Al-Qaeda was responsible for the bombing in the Sinai last weekend, that they were responsible for Madrid, and may or may not be plotting something here. Obviously, NSAs do matter. The insurgency in Iraq, whether being carried out by Baath loyalists, foriegn terrorists or simple home-grown guerillas, is proof the NSAs matter. The first question last night was whether our children (meaning people of my generation) and our grandchildren will be safer in the future. The only real way to do that, in my estiamtion, is to acknowledge that the era of states as the only actors in the world are over. This also does explain why Iraq became the focus of the administration so quickly. They needed a state to go after, and Iraq seemed the logical choice. So what if we're engaged in a war against religous extremists, let's attack a secular Muslim state, while the Mullahs brutally rule over Iran, and Saudi royal money flows into Wahabbist schools? The Iraqi's just made an easy target because Saddam had been so arrogantly flaunting the world for a decade.

Fun stuff. Anyone in the Ann Arbor area, stop by Scorekeepers at 310 W. MAynard, across from Borders, tomorrow for the radio show. I actually hit my lock last week, bringing my record to a scintillating 1-5.