Far be it for me to introduce politics into my personal blog, but after watching the presidential debate last night between incumbent president George W. Bush and the democratic hopeful John Kerry, I felt that I had to comment on it. It was quite an interesting and spirited debate. Click "Read More..." for my impressions and observations regarding the debate.

I don't really want to call it a "debate" right out, it was more like a glorified news conference, only difference being only one person asks the questions (the moderator) and each candidate has the opportunity to add a rebuttal to whatever the other says. The audience was instructed to stay totally silent for the 90 minutes of the debate, which I don't feel was appropriate. I mean, one of these two men is going to be the next President of the United States, the citizens should have a right to ask them a question on whatever issue they want to discuss. But that aside:

I shall warn you, though, I'm pretty much biased towards Kerry because he fits my views very well, and also because I have a personal vendetta with Bush, which I will not get into. However, for this debate, I had to push my prejudices aside and balance each side's responses equally, no matter how much Bush's answers make my stomach churn. Iraq and Homeland Security was the hot topic of last night's debate, and Kerry's position was that the war in Iraq should not have happened the way it did, with over a thousand US soldiers dead, and the country footing the $200bil bill for the whole thing. Bush quickly retorted that Kerry voted for the war, then spoke out against it. The way I see it, when Kerry voted in the Senate for the war, he had confidence that Bush would be able to strategically plan for it to ensure that deaths were minimal on both sides, while still relieving control of Iraq from the Ba'ath party. However, Bush jumped right into it, and that wasn't all. Kerry brought to light the fact that Bush had the soldiers primarily defend oil fields in Iraq, and not the infrastructure such as nuclear (Or as Bush pronounces it, "nu-ku-lar") power plants, Ministry of Information offices and more importantly, hospitals where the wounded lay.

Bush has a lot of flaws, mainly in his planning and execution of the war in Iraq, but Kerry, he had flip-flopped on a lot of issues before last night, but when he stood up in front of the podium he was very firm about his position. Throughout the whole 90 minutes of the debate, it was apparent that Bush was in the hot seat. Near the end, he stuttered and paused in the middle of sentences to gather his thoughts, while Kerry was still going strong and beaming. At the very end, they shook hands, and if you looked closely Bush glared at Kerry, and Kerry had a smirk on his face. It occurs to me that Kerry brought up a lot of issues Bush didn't expect him to, and he was getting blasted by ammunition after ammunition, while the only thing Bush had against Kerry was the fact that he flip-flopped, which he used over and over, even after it was old and tired. I have to say that after last night, I am more confident now than ever that my vote will go to Kerry.

Anybody but Bush.