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Cocco: Debate shows up candidates' differences

Marie Cocco

October 1, 2004

First, they killed all the lawyers.

And thank goodness they did.

President George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry came as close as they could to throwing away the tightly scripted rules their two campaigns had negotiated for the first presidential debate in Miami last night. So the country was largely spared zingers. It got substance instead.

The two men have sneered and snickered at one another from afar during a vitriolic campaign. Last night, they mostly managed to put substance over style. No one who watched through the 90 minutes could now reasonably claim that there is little difference between the two.

For Democrats wondering before the broadcast if their nominee would serve up today's equivalent of more mush from the wimp, Kerry offered something new and different: He let Kerry be Kerry.

He wore his own skin comfortably. He demonstrated a mastery of every foreign policy subject -- Iraq, North Korea, Iran, nuclear proliferation and homeland security -- expected of a president. If Kerry's task was to look like a plausible president, he accomplished it easily.

The president let Bush be Bush. He stuck to his core message -- that the Iraq war was, in his words, "not a mistake," and that what he says is Kerry's vacillation about the conflict makes him an unfit commander in chief. Those keeping count of how many times Bush accused Kerry of sending "mixed messages" or offering only "uncertainty" quickly ran out of fingers and toes. Kerry's retort: "Its one thing to be certain. But you can be certain and wrong."

And that is, really, what Americans watching the carnage broadcast almost daily from Baghdad from now until November must decide. Is it enough for a president to be sure of himself, even when the facts should be shaking the foundation of his -- of anyone's -- belief? Or is this stubbornness finally too much to bear?

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

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