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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
Camille Paglia, Arianna Huffington, Roger Ebert, Ben Stein and others weigh in on the partisan fisticuffs in Boston.
Oct 4, 2000 | Round 1 is in the books. The much anticipated face-off between Al Gore and George W. Bush finally went down at the University of Massachusetts last night, keeping the cable news networks chattering into the night. Amid the clamor, no clear winner emerged.
Whether it was Bush's carping about "fuzzy math" or Gore's incessant deep sighing, undecided voters who went into the debate looking for answers seemed to walk away just as undecided. Even some of Salon's carnivorous partisans walked away disappointed, giving the performance a thumbs-down.
Camille Paglia is an author and a Salon columnist.
My first reaction to last night's presidential debate was relief that, should he be elected, George W. Bush will not be as totally inarticulate and brain-cell-deficient as we have had abundant reason to fear over the past year. Bush's performance was occasionally shaky but competent, and he stressed his key issues in plain, common-sense language that probably connected with many voters outside the Northeastern media loop.
Bush was at his weakest in dealing with foreign policy, but that's to be expected from any governor (like Bill Clinton in 1992) aspiring to the presidency. Bush was embarrassingly bad, however, in fielding the question about how he would handle a severe economic downturn. He looked and sounded like a stammering schoolboy. The top candidate of the business-savvy Republican Party should have a lot more on the ball when it comes to economics.
In stagecraft terms, I would note that Bush's hair (like early Clinton's) is too flyaway, and his collars and jackets are retrograde and ill-fitting. Plus, guys with this much testosterone pumping need another shave by the end of the day. Bush's Nixonian stubble was somewhat distracting.
As for Al Gore, if I had had any doubt about whether he deserves my vote, he managed to run right over it with his out-of-control, ham-laden 18-wheeler. What a loathsome, smug, preening, juvenile character! The supposedly great debater babbled out of turn; snickered, snorted and sneered; panted and sighed like a bellows; and rocked to and fro and ripped paper like a patient in a mental ward. And Gore looked positively repellent with his dark mat of dyed hair, garish orange makeup and flippantly twisting, strangely female features: I kept on thinking of the bewigged, transvestite Norman Bates as Mother in "Psycho".
In terms of issues, Gore is vastly more prepared than Bush to hit the ground running as chief executive. Gore knows his way around international affairs, and he is certainly more conversant with the operations of the federal bureaucracy. His lifetime in Washington, D.C., is both his strongest and weakest point. Voters' suspicions about him, however, stem from their quite accurate sense that he will promise the moon and the stars to everyone just to get elected and that his constant stream of words means nothing. By the end of the debate, I felt, Gore's loosey-goosey pandering had made him seem curiously unpresidential.
The really big news of the night was that Green Party candidate Ralph Nader (for whom, as I say in my latest column, I intend to vote) was physically stopped from entering the hall -- which sounds like something out of the old Soviet Union. C-SPAN showed a late-night report from Boston TV that interviewed a Nader supporter, a very angry and shaken Smith College student, who was hit in the head with a rock by a Gore supporter in the crowd outside. This was the second report of a physical assault by Gore supporters last night.
Something is going very wrong with the Democratic Party. Democratic activists are becoming hooligans. When Hillary Clinton was scheduled to vacation in Skaneateles, N.Y., this summer (my home region), Democrats pressured the town government to remove Rick Lazio signs from people's private lawns. The town refused. In the middle of the night before Hillary arrived, the signs were all stolen -- an act of trespassing as well as a violation of free speech.
In Philadelphia about a year and a half ago, union activists assaulted and beat up several citizens carrying anti-Clinton signs in front of a hotel where the president was scheduled to speak. At least part of the attack was filmed by TV crews. This was a blatant violation of the protesters' constitutional right to peaceful assembly. The major media, with their liberal bias, have ignored these troubling signs that the Democratic Party (of which I am a registered member) is sliding toward irrationalism and zealotry.
Robert Reich, former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration and current editor of the American Prospect
It was a colossal bore. It was better than Sominex; there were no side effects. There was no humor, no artfulness, they got lost in budget numbers having to do with 10-year projections that are fictions at best. Gore seemed pedantic. Bush seemed scared. They repeated the same mantras over and over. I can't believe that many members of the public are going to watch debate No. 2. It was a colossal dud, a first-class dud. It didn't change anybody's mind. It may keep some people away from the voting booth on Nov. 7 because it was so utterly predictable.
On the one hand, Gore clearly had far better command over the policies than Bush. Gore was a fountain of data and analyses. But I don't have to spin anymore. He talked far too long and too much, and he sometimes sounded condescending and pedantic. Bush on the other hand sounded as if he didn't really understand the issues terribly well, was a bit intimidated by Gore and is a lightweight. Now, I think people who are policy junkies or political junkies who watched the whole thing and listened carefully agree that Gore won it hands down. But most of the public wasn't moved in one way or the other by the debate. It was a big yawn.
Gore will win this election. The basics are on his side -- the economy is good, he's a far more experienced campaigner and debater, the president knows how to handle Washington Republicans over the next six weeks of budget negotiations to make them look pathetic. Gore's staff are far more experienced in national campaigns than Bush's staff. I would be utterly amazed if Gore did not win this election.
Arianna Huffington is a syndicated columnist and a Salon contributor.
Well, it was a great night for John McCain. By the end of that 90-minute joint press conference Bush and Gore staged in Boston, my overwhelming feeling was: This is not a choice, it's a farce. Can we go back and replay Super Tuesday? If Bush's goal was to look presidential, he needs a big-time makeover. In fact, it was painful to watch what the tension did to him -- you could all but smell the fear through the TV screen. But then maybe this was just the first step in interactive television that we've been hearing so much about. (He also needs to stop losing weight, or get some shirts with a smaller collar.)
On the other hand, it was hard to watch Gore without your mind wandering to what was in the refrigerator. Hmm, have those eggs passed the sell-by date? Of course, Gore would probably pick up on what you were thinking and launch into his five-part plan for ensuring food freshness: "I hear what you're asking, and if you'll entrust me with the presidency, here's what we'll do with your eggs ..." And was he aware of the disconcerting effect his constant sighing and groaning at his opponent's answers was having? (Also, despite the fact that he's his "own man," I suggest he take a fashion tip from the president and start wearing those jowl-concealing higher collars.)
Despite all the training and the advice to show his "sincerity and genuineness," Gore could not break out of his innate priggishness. And if Bush was hoping to win by transcending his unbearable lightness -- well, he didn't. He was like one of those Macy's parade balloons -- if the ropes had broken, he would have floated right out of the auditorium.
Some are born great, some acquire greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. If Shakespeare had watched Tuesday night's debate, he might have added: And some can only bleat soullessly as greatness passes them by.
