Who Can Really Say?

The Argument That Dare Not Speak Its Name

I don't have much time to blog right now but wanted to at least get something up about the debate last night before the carcass is cold.

As for substance, I'm pretty much with James Lileks' take:

But mostly I hate the debates because I simply cannot abide hearing certain statements I’ve been hearing over, and over, and over again. I can’t take any more talk about bringing allies to the table. Which ones? Brazil? Mynmar? Microfrickin’nesia? Are there some incredibly important and powerful nations out there whose existence has hitherto escaped me? Fermany? Gerance? The Galactic Order of the Belgian Dominion? Did we piss off the Vulcans? Who? If we mean “France and Germany,” then please explain to me why the reluctant participation of these two countries somehow bestows the magic kiss of legitimacy. They want in? Fine. They don’t? Fine. At this point mooning over France is like being that sophomore loser dorm pal who spent his dateless weekends telling his loser roommate about a high school sweetheart who stood him up for the prom. Give it up. Move on. I understand; they are wise and nuanced, we are young and dumb. We’re the cowboy leaning with his back against the bar, elbows on the rail, watching the door; we need our European betters to teach us how to ape the subtle forms of Nijinsky, limbs arrayed in the exquisite form of the Dying Swan. Understood. But I don’t want to be the Dying Swan. And I don’t want posture lessons from a country that spent the last 20 years flopping on its back and grabbing its ankles when Saddam showed up waving stacks of Francs in exchange for bang-sticks. Don’t you think I know about France’s relations with Saddam? Surely the advocates of the French Touch must know, and don’t care. Or they don’t know – in which case their advice is useless.

This is the argument that dare not speak it's name. That is, I'd love to have heard Bush say something at least a little bit like this during the debate, but it's probably beyond the ability of any sitting President to insult so much of the rest of the world, however weenie they well may be. (Caveat: this doesn't stop challenger candidates from insulting bribed and coerced . . . oh, never mind).

But beyond that, all of the talk for the last 20 some hours has been about "who won", which is really sort of silly if you think about it. The winner isn't the one that get's the best grades from the post-debate pundits, and it isn't the one that gets the nod in post-debate polls about "who won" either. Let's imagine for a moment that the Olympic figure skating finals have just concluded. Yeah, we'll listen to what Dick Button or Scott Hamilton or whoever says about the performance. And if you look around the living room some folks there might be sleeping have an opinion. But you don't know who won it until the people that actually get to say who won it in fact get around to saying who won it. In figure skating, that's the judges, and in election debating, that's the voters. No, we don't have to wait until November 2, but in a weeks time or so the dust should have settled and then we'll know if the race has tightened, and if it has, then we can probably conclude the debate had something to do with it.

[Linked to the Beltway Traffic Jam].

Posted by Peter at October 1, 2004 06:01 PM