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Since everyone is suddenly soooooooo concerned about etiquette, I wanted to make sure that this piece of bad taste from Bush didn't get lost in the shuffle:
There was a point in the debate where Kerry mentioned that two leading news organizations supported some point he was making about Bush's record. On his rebuttal, Bush started out, smirkily, by saying, "Well, I'm not sure you should be citing leading news organizations to prove a point..." Then he trailed off, listened to the silence for a moment, laughed awkwardly, and said, "But anyway..."
Liza turned to me and said, basically, :wtf:
I said, "He was TRYING to make a joke about CBS and the National Guard memos. Which I think was unbelievably crass given that the MODERATOR works for CBS."
Not only was this crass, it didn't even work. The total lack of a laugh from anyone on the stage or in the audience was no doubt due to either people not realizing what he was driving at, or people realizing it and being horrified that he would gloat over this in front of Bob Schieffer. I think it was probably #1--Bush was able to get a laugh at the end with his answer to the fluff question about strong women, but throughout most of the debate any time he tried for comic timing, it was a disaster--but for me it was #2. Your operatives set the network up and then you stand up there and try to score off it in front of one of the guys who was hurt by it. Nice manners, asshole.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder
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