‘Personally I give it to Kerry - not in a hands down sort of way by any means, but he did win.

Kerry: Got it right when he talked about America’s isolation being a bad thing and how they have lost respect in the world - that has to resonate with people. Thinking Americans know that they and their government have lost a lot of respect in the international community, and they know why.

Kerry was overly obvious with the “I am resolute” and “I will never waiver” comments - and the ‘hunt them down and kill them’ comment was a complete loser. He was trying hard to over come the whole flip-flop thing… basically he tried to hard, and blew it.

Bush: Did good with the ‘I will never put US foreign policy in the hands of others’ type lines - they are a decent counter to the loss of respect charge Kerry leveled but that can be over done and I really think that only the hard core Republican folks now nod their heads and smile grimy when he says it. Bush also repeated himself far to many times, paused as if searching for words to many times (one pause was quite long even), did the looking up and quick blinking in succession as if trying to pull something from way back in memory or remember what had been said on the topic before - and that one attempt at humour towards the end of the debate fell seriously flat.

The quick jabs were good. Kerry talking about the lack of a real coalition - Bush trying to counter with the number of countries in the coalition - Kerry countering that with the rebuttal about who actually contributed, and what they contributed.

Kerry came out way a head of Bush on the “if there was one thing about the character of your opponent that would prevent him from doing a good job” (or words to that effect) - he came out ahead because he didn’t really talk about a Bush character flaw. I mean, gods know there is a lot of fodder there to chew on - but he didn’t, he resisted the urge, and Bush couldn’t. Kerry was definitely the statesman in that exchange.

Bush did try to talk about how he appreciated Kerry’s various contributions, as well as at various times tried to at least act like he didn’t think Kerry was unworthy - but it rang obviously hollow and he would have been better off not even trying to play the role of diplomat and statesman.

Bush also made, I think, a critical error when he pointed at the moderator at one point and said “No, let me finish” - the little light on his panel was not lit when he pointed and spoke so the comment was completely unnecessary…. I’m not sure what point he was trying to make with it, but it looked bad and came off as ‘I’m the president dammit and you will let me finish’.

Other interesting things worth noting are that apparently U.S. foreign policy pretty well revolves around Iraq and Afghanistan, with minor roles being played by North Korea, Iran, some old Russian nukes, and genocide in Darfur - Israel got a very quick mention, Palestine got nothing, developing countries got nothing, trafficking in people got nothing, the third world got nothing, world starvation and disease got nothing, climate change and global warming got nothing…. hell, there were a lot of things that got nothing. It’s enough to make a person think that foreign policy and military action, or the threat there of, are what foreign policy in America is all about.

Those who were looking to see some Bush-speak were probably really disappointed, there was only one that I caught… the one about the dangers of sending “mexed missiges”, we’ll have to see what play it gets in the left wing blog-o-sphere but compared to some of the other things that have come out of his mouth that little tongue twister was really minor.

Bush went a considerable distance in closing the gap in his closing statement which was, IMO, far better than Kerry’s. For that brief time Bush looked more relaxed and comfortable than he did at any other time in the debate, during which he stumbled over sentences and looked slightly confused many times but - that was gone during the final statement, and that’s the part many people will remember.

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