The debate ...

Observing the reactions of students and others, as well as the spin-masters, after last night's debate, it's interesting to ask who they think "won" the debate, and why. Most often they say Senator John Kerry. If you ask why, they remark on his "clarity," "decisiveness," or "leadership" image, in contrast to President George Bush, who seemed "defensive," "flustered," or "indecisive." I understand why they think and say these things. Bush has never been comfortable in debates. He has even joked publicly about his own inarticulateness. Kerry, by contrast, is smooth. He did seem decisive and sure of himself, in contrast to Bush. His gestures were commanding.

We would do well, however, to remember what a debate is. A debate is about arguments. A debate calls for each participant to deal with facts, with data, evidence, and to construct arguments based on them that will make his case, rebut his opponent's arguments, and persuade his audience. If a debate were about image and making impressions, then certainly Kerry won last night. But if a debate is about substantive argument, Kerry lost, though few will discern this. The points he made were nothing more than bald assertions with nothing to support them: "I can do better in Iraq." "I can do better with the Iraqi elections." "I can do better with the international community." Certainly he uttered these declarations with apparent conviction, with firm voice and impressive gesture. But these assertions were not only unsupported by any sort of evidence or argument; in many cases they are unsupportable.

Since Kerry isn't offering arguments, he must be assuming that people will vote for him on the basis of blind faith in his assertions. But why should anyone believe these? Why should we believe that Kerry can do better in Iraq, with Iraqi elections, or the international community, when he has had virtually no international experience and has gone out of his way to demean the coalition of international participants in the Iraq that Bush has put together? Not only is there nothing to support this pipe dream. There is pleny to contravene it. By contrast, while Bush is a plainspoken man and had little in the way of style last night, he had sound arguments to offer, based on a record to attest to it. For example:

• Sen. Kerry had the same intelligence that the President did before the war in Iraw and voted for invasion, but then subsequently voting to withold funding for our troops. When the President pointed this out, Kerry deftly sidestepped the issue without responding to it. Smooth, but no cigar.
• Kerry also said the President had "made a mistake" in invading Iraw but denied that our troops in Iraq are dying for a mistake. Kerry can't have it both ways. He can't say it's a mistake and not a mistake. You can't be for getting rid of Saddam Hussein when things look good and against it when times are hard. The President must speak clearly and the President must mean what he says.
• Kerry said that the cornerstone of his plan for Iraq is to "convene a summit" and work with our allies. However, he said that those who are standing with us are not part of a "genuine coalition" and he previously called them a coalition of the "coerced and the bribed." The way to lead the coalition is not to be disdainful or dismissive of our allies. The way to lead the coalition to victory is to be clear in our thinking, grateful for their sacrifices and resolute in our determination to defeat the enemy.
• We witnessed a glipse of the Kerry Doctrine during the debate when Kerry said America has to pass a "global test" before we can use American troops to defend ourselves. The President will continue to work with our allies and the international community, but will never submit America's national security to an international test. The President's job is not to take an international poll. The President's job is to defend America.

John Kerry's flip-flops and logical non sequiturs are a matter of public record. Yet debates today are no longer necessarily won or lost on the merits of arguments. Americans today are influenced by image and 'spin' as much, if not more, than they are influenced by discerning the logic of arguments. This also prevents them from being very discerning of the substance of a candidate's character. The greatest enemies of all that Socrates stood for in ancient Greece were sophists, clever word-smiths who could take the worst side of an argument and make it appear the better. The sophists were a bit like lawyers, interested in making money by helping people win their cases in court -- not by sound arguments in the interests of truth, but by cleverly devising logical ambiguities to get their clients what they wanted. Sophists were concerned only with appearances, not with reality. They were relativists, disdainful of any absolute principles. Similarly, Plato regarded the greatest enemies of the welfare of the body politic those smooth and sophistical politicians who came to power in a democracy by making the most outlandish promises, with no intention or means of delivering on them. Such a politician, Plato predicted in The Republic, would come to power only to become the worst imaginable tyrant. All of this suggests that our record as a nation does not bode well for the future. For a nation that could elected Bill Clinton for a second term, and mount John Kerry as a viable Democratic candidate, nearly anything is possible.

Need additional information on Kerry? Check out Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, by John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi, as well as this page.