Alex Knapp writes:

To me, the only issue that the Presidential election is going to be decided on is foreign policy and homeland security. And so I’m forced to choose between Bush, who says the right things but whose Administration is so hopelessly incompetent that I can’t guarantee he’ll actually accomplish anything, and Kerry, who is pushing for the wrong policies and policies that are dependent on the actions of other countries to such a degree that I do not believe they will succeed—and this coupled with the fact that I do not believe that Kerry truly understands the nature of the enemy. Not that Bush understands the enemy—but Bush at least knows who they are. I don’t think Kerry does.

I think Alex gets at my discomfiture about Kerry’s performance better than I was able to last night. The Bush problem—why I pronounced his performance abysmal—revolves mostly around the unspoken assumptions that his policy rests on, and which he generally failed to articulate. The Kerry problem is that virtually all of his prescriptions rely on wishful thinking—and much of that wishful thinking has already been refuted.

One thing to start off with: I wasn’t entirely sober this evening and was watching the debate in a room in which it’s safe to say I was the only person openly to the “right” of Paul Krugman. So don’t expect any deep or detailed analysis.

I think Kerry put on enough of a decent performance that—if I were an undecided voter whose main concern was “fixing” Iraq—would be sufficiently reassuring that if, on other issues Kerry was acceptable, the Iraq thing would no longer be a concern. I don’t think Kerry ever satisfactorily answered the “how do we get there from here?” question—in fact, I think that’s the one question that Lehrer didn’t ask that should have been asked. Of course, the “foreign leaders will help me” fantasy was still on full display—he said “I can get these people on board” but essentially required the audience to take it on faith that he could (any evidence of his past ability to do so was certainly absent). Kerry never articulated why bilateral talks with North Korea were good but multilateral talks with Iran* were preferable—a glaring inconsistency that needs to be resolved. Last, but not least, Kerry needs to shut the fuck up about Vietnam… even the liberals were rolling their eyes at that.

On the other hand, I think Bush’s performance was pretty abysmal. As James Joyner points out, except when he was talking about the woman whose son died in Iraq(?), the “charming, congenial side” of Bush never came out, and he never successfully nailed down Kerry on his evasiveness, even in the debate. Bush failed to make a coherent case for the “Bush doctrine”—the American mission in the world of ensuring the spread of liberty, representative government, and the rule of law. Bush let Kerry get away with blatantly misrepresenting both Iran and North Korea. And, frankly, I got the impression that Bush was completely unprepared to go beyond his talking points—I could have made a better defense of his policies, unbriefed. Bush gave an absolutely horrible performance, and one that I suspect may give Kerry the breathing room he needs to rebound. In sum, I don’t think Kerry so much won the debate as Bush lost it.

Finally, a procedural point: the podium thing was a disaster in split-screen. Someone in the Bush-Cheney campaign’s head should roll for that.

* I think Kerry misrepresented the Iran negotiation strategy completely, but that’s neither here nor there.