I watched the first presidential debate last night. It was quite entertaining overall, as I fully expected it to be. I think, overall, John Kerry is much more professional than George Bush.

While Kerry was speaking, Bush was fooling around, making smirks, chuckling to himself, or just looking annoyed. While Bush was speaking, Kerry was just rock solid, occasionally nodding his head in agreement with a point, or acknowledging something Bush had said.

Bush spent a lot of time saying “uhhh” or just in dumb silence searching for words (sometimes up to maybe 4 seconds, after which he’d always burst out not with some complex word, but something like “group of folks”). Kerry seemed to be really on target and sharp, and knew what he was saying, why he was saying it, and it seemed to come from himself, not from some writer or advisor.

On the actual issues, I felt that Bush spent a lot of time just avoiding issues instead of facing them, and especially instead of explaining them. His repeated confusion of Iraq and Al Qaeda, and especially his reference to “they attacked us” as justification for the pre-emptive Iraq war was really telling.

Kerry seemed very humble and even once outright said “I made a mistake”. Kerry seemed to really know how the US is looked upon in the World view today, whereas Bush’s ideas of that made me chuckle. Amazingly I think Bush really does think that the World’s opinion of the US is “just fine”. I particularly loved how Bush made many references to “the terrorists” and how they “hate freedom” and they’re upset that if Iraq and Afghanistan become free, then they’ve lost… right.

Bush really made me laugh when he said: “I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is.”.

Once again, watching Bush on TV, I am embarrassed that he is my president.