During the first US Presidential Debate, which focused on Iraq and foreign policy, there was little of substance on what either candidate would do to save the increasingly worsening situation in Iraq. Devoid of a genuine plan for the embattled expedition, the mass media and blogosphere granted an overwhelming victory to John F. Kerry in the debate.

George W. Bush's performance was lack-lustre, but this is nothing new as all his public appearances where he has been challenged or had to answer ad-hoc questions leave him stammering for words. John Kerry is known as a strong debater, and with many years in the US Senate this skill would only have been honed. The victory to Kerry was determined by the debaters posture, fluency and expressions; not their actual policies.

Poll: What is more important to you in a debate?

Stage Management

The debate is one of three presidential debates, there will also be a vice-presidential debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. The debates have been stage managed in a similar manner to the on TV appearances of the candidates, there was a large rule book, negotiated between the two political teams, that the moderator had to follow. In this environment both candidates chose to treat the debate like a long press conference.

Despite Bush's several interventions to reply after Kerry's comments, he did not reply with a rebuttal, but rather a sound-bite of spin from the Republican campaign office. This level of stage management of politicians was noted by Michael Kinsley in a Washington Post op-ed;

One the occasional TV interview, including the "debates" stands between us and the complete automation of the presidency, in which every moment of public exposure is scripted.

The Bush rallies have contained cherry-picked audiences to remove any chance of dissent and to ensure the Bush gets thrown softball questions at them. One Republican rally in the South-West required the audience to sign a pledge to vote for Bush-Cheney before they were allowed to enter. Even the Thanksgiving photo-op in Iraq had the soldiers at the media event vetted to ensure no hick-ups for the President.

Kinsley laments that even the TV appearances of the politicians are also scripted, and the Presidential debate has become the only point of contact between the people and the President. The next Presidential debate is a town hall style one, where the public asks questions, but even this has been taken over by the election campaigns. The public can only ask questions that have been vetted by the campaign moderators and if they deviate from their allowed question, they will be pulled. So much for democracy.

All Style, No Substance

Both candidates during the debate claimed to have a plan for Iraq, and they hammered on and on, that they had a plan. Neither bothered to enunciate it. Over the period of ninety minutes the audience was only able to gather snippets of their plan. David Ignatious wrote on the lack of substance in a Washington Post op-ed;

"I have a plan for Iraq," Kerry kept repeating. But the elements of his plan are either things the Bush administration is doing, such as accelerating the training of Iraqi security forces, or things that Kerry himself will have trouble achieving, such as drawing more European allies into the fray.

Bush said he had a "plan for victory," too, which was to "remain strong and resolute" - and to keep training more Iraqis to take the place of U.S. soldiers. But he was relying on a still-untested assumption when he said that 100,000 Iraqis are now "trained to do the job," and that more than 200,000 will be ready by the end of the year.

So even though they carried on like the two candidates had major disagreements on Iraq, their policy for Iraq was pretty much the same. Given that Vietnam soon fell after the policy of "Vietnamization" was embarked upon, it is highly likely that this policy of "Iraqification" will have the same result.

Iraq was not a haven for terrorists before the invasion in 2002; since then it has adopted the status of failed-state, on the likelihood of civil war and is now a haven for terrorist groups courtesy of an unstable environment and porous borders. Neither candidate has a plan, other than a failed plan of Nixon's from the 1970's.

Kerry Won The Debate

Considering neither candidate had little if any substance to their Iraq and foreign policies the only way the candidates could be differentiated was on "style". In this area George W. Bush lost due to his inability to articulate himself, his petulant looks when Kerry had contrary opinions to his own and his posture behind the podium. The podium height was another negotiated point between the campaigns, height being a sensitive matter in presidential politics. Ironically the day after Fox News photoshopped several inches onto George Bush for parity.

For the paid and non-paid punditry the war over style was won by Kerry, from Joe Scarborough of MSNBC;

It was John Kerry's best performance ever...As far as the debate goes, I don't see how anybody could look at this debate and not score this a very clear win on points for John Kerry.

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post;

Bush didn't look good. He appeared smaller than Kerry, sometimes angry, and seemed to develop the sort of relationship with his lectern that an infant does with a security blanket.

Nine out of ten pundits agree, style is more important than substance. Both candidates lost during the first debate in my opinion. I was genuinely interested in just what policy they would pursue to reign in Iraq, stabilize it and set it off a path that would stem the flow of troops, money and arms from the US to Iraq. Neither gave me one iota of belief that they would be able to handle it. Iraq will wind down until the American population makes a deployment there politically untenable. The US will then cut and run. This is the impression I get for the future policy for Iraq.

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