I don't have a lot to add to the general praise of Kerry. Given everything we know at this point, for Bush to have outdebated Kerry this time, he would have to be-- well somone else. I think the Bush team thought that the foreign policy questions at the beginning would allow Bush to recoup from last week's debate. Too bad about that pesky Duelfer report. The audience asked great questions. I think Bush was a bit taken aback by how well-informed they were. Wonkette has the best of the live-blogging posts.

9:37Shorter Bush: "Stop fucking with me! Stop it! Stop fucking with me!"
9:39 The voice in his ear just told him to speak more quietly.
9:40 BREAKING: Canadians want to kill you with their pretend drugs.

(snip)

10:22 Dred Scott case? Wha? Isn't this teevee? Oh well. At least we know for sure that Bush doesn't support slavery. Whew.
10:28 Q: Name three times you've made a mistake. A: I WAS RIGHT TO GO TO WAR. AND THAT'S A TRICK QUESTION. FUCK YOU.
10:30 Dad Wonkette writes in with his summation: "Kerry waxed Bush's ass." And you wonder how I turned out this way.

Hee hee.

UPDATE: More hee hee from James Wolcott

It's one thing to cut off your opponent, but to cut off Charlie Gibson in mid-question, holler at the audience, and heave your shoulders with laughter at your own weak jests--this doesn't strike me as a good gameplan to convince swing voters of your sanity.

My provisional opinion, contingent upon no unforseen events altering the current dynamics (i.e, a meteor crashing through the ceiling of the auditorium), is that Kerry is grinding Bush into such fine pencil shavings that even Peggy Noonan will not be able to sweep him up and make him whole.

Bullshit Alert!

Bill O'Reilly on Jon Stewart tonight! I can hardly wait.

Bush/Cheney: Four more months

It's very interesting that the Edwards-Cheney debate generated such lopsided online poll results.

* MSNBC has Edwards Up 60% to 40% in this poll with over 1,580,000 respondents so far.
* CNBC Has Edwards up 59% to 41%.
* CBS News has Edwards over Cheney by a margin of 81% to 17%.
* Right wing Fox News has Cheney winning 50% to 47%
* The CNN poll has Edwards destroying Cheney 78% 18% with nearly 200,000 votes tallied.
* The Wall Street Journal has Edwards crushing Dick 88% to 9%.
* Yahoo News shows Edwards dominating Cheney 62% to 32%.

I mean, Edwards was good, but he hardly ran away with the debate. In fact, I wish he hadn't pandered to Israel quite so obviously, or gone on about Cheney's GAY DAUGHTER, (could he have stressed that any more pointedly?) among other things. I was not as utterly relieved and giddy as I was after Kerry handed Bush his ass last Thursday.

But then maybe I'm not giving Edwards enought credit--Kerry wasn't up against Satan.

Cheney is a pathological liar. And his matter-of-fact, no-nonsense delivery had the oddly unnerving effect of making me second guess what I know is the truth. I could feel his evility reaching through the television to bend my will.

But I think the tide has turned and voters who are paying attention are not being fooled anymore. I think the lopsided polls are a result of people who have made up their minds, not only who they are voting for, but to take action and affect public opinion in the way the right wingers have affected it so well for the last 4 years. We are making it happen.

BTW, wasn't Dick Cheney the doctor who delivered Rosemary's baby?