Bush on Larry King

George Bush was fortunate that his rare televised interview was a game of softball, and is unlikely to have much impact on the race. I had a bit of pleasure early in the show as Bush was forced to concede that John Kerry had an honorable millitary record, even if he wasn't willing to admit the impropriety and dishonesty of the recent attacks. Just as he avoided responsibility for the dishonest tone of the campaign, Bush later seemed to be trying to pass the buck, and place the blame for his failures in Iraq on the generals, especially Tommy Frank.

Bush got off easy with Larry King's questioning of his statements on the aircraft carrier below the Mission Accomplished banner. Bush downplayed his premature claims of success, and was never questioned about his clearly erroneous assessment that the major hostilities were over.

Bush's favorite word in discussing his foreign policy goals was "free." Unfortunately it came out in a more Orwellian sense of "freedom is slavery." While Bush claimed that freedom would solve all the problems, I can't help but wonder how much freedom he would really allow. The hard question of what we do about countries which would undoubtably elect governments hostile to the United States if given such freedom was never asked.

Laura Bush got away with her claims that "there's not a ban on stem cell research" by not having to face hard questions about the limitations imposed by George Bush which many scientists feel are as bad as a ban. Bush justified his policies by citing "ethicists who impress me" which translates to pandering to the religious right.

Bush said he wanted the people, not the courts, to decide on stem cell research. In that case, why didn't he allow the people, as opposed to the court, decide the 2000 election?

Bush made a quick mention of abolishing the "death tax," another Republican scheme to help the super-wealthy while pretending to help others such as the family farmer. Finding the family farmer who actually benefits from Republican policy is as difficult as finding Osama, or finding WMD in Iraq.

When talking about the race, Bush noted that "this is politics, people put words in your mouth." He knows what he speaks about. Tonight he put words in Kerry's mouth with false claims about his tax policy. Earlier in the week we saw Bush do the same as he misquoted Kerry's answer to the Iraq question.

All in all, it wasn't that Bush did all that badly (expecially with the soft questions). The real difference was that we didn't see the depth of knowledge present when John Kerry answers questions. George Bush earned a "gentleman's C" in contrast to the earlier interview where Kerry earned an A.