Snapshot of the debate: Near the end, there was an image that stuck ø President George W. Bush looking sideways at John Kerry with open frustration and anger.
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Take this debate and . . .
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Yes, he was losing the debate, endangering his reelection campaign and with it the Bush doctrine for the post-Cold War world. But at that moment, he didn't seem to care. Under the rules of this game, there was no way he knew how to fight back.
If Americans wanted the tall, pompous empty-suit running away with the high school seniors' debate championship, well they could have him.
Never has Washington seen a president who has retained such contempt for the town all the way through his first term of office. W. came to town pledging to change the "tone" in the nation's capital. Fat chance.
Instead it was his tone in the debate that raised eyebrows: at time querulous, defensive and well, hacked-off. His defenders cringed and made excuses. His legions of haters gloated.
So in terms of establishing what's at stake in this campaign, the first debate of 2004 was a complete waste of time. If W wins the election, his revolution in U.S. foreign policy will continue and a precedent will be established in 21st century Washington: integrity is back and political expedience no longer rules this power-crazed town.
If W loses, then it's back to Crawford with pleasure. Or as Davy Crockett, upon losing reelection to the Congress, told his colleagues: "You can go to hell, I'm going to Texas."
No, the man of the year is neither candidate, locked as they are into the targeted and limiting talking points their handlers provide. (That's not to say there wasn't plenty for the president to say ø a subject for another day) And forget the socialist billionaire and the fading rock god moonlighting as a born-again do-gooder.
Instead it's a cranky, retired Swift Boat veteran who read Douglas Brinkley's "Tour of Duty" about John Kerry and decided to exercise his First Amendment rights. Such individual initiative at the age of 78 is noteworthy. But when it snowballs into the hallmark of the 2004 campaign, such efforts can be deemed historical, even epochal.
"Last I checked, free speech was still an American ideal, regardless of whether the Democrats and Republicans like it or not," Said Retired Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, founder of the now-legendary "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."
Hoffman is no GOP shill. He was shocked by Kerry's anti-war activism and testimony to Congress, but was dragged by his wife to a wedding party for John Kerry and Teresa Heinz in 1995. "I'm in no way connected to the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, or any other party," he said, as quoted by American Spectator.
"I've served under presidents from FDR on and I never had a single question about their loyalty or dedication to the United States of America. But I would have questions about Kerry's loyalty and leadership if he were elected. And that doesn't sit well with me."
The Washington Post profile on Oct. 3, notes that Hoffman may have an axe to grind. Brinkley's tribute to Kerry painted Hoffman as the bad guy in the war story, quoting anonymous sources who described him as "hotheaded" and "egomaniacal" and "bloodthirsty".
"I was not a kindly commander, put it that way," Hoffman told the Post. The man, it is embarrassingly clear, has never had therapy.
"Me with a guilty conscience? You got to be kidding. I've said a hundred times, I have no apologies for being aggressive. We were directed to carry the fight to our enemy by order and we did it, for real."
Hoffman has a read on John Kerry that cuts through the non-stop journ-analysts trying to answer the un-answerable question: "Who is this guy and why is he running for president?"
Upon being called by Kerry in his damage-control mode, Hoffman listened for a while and then assured the senator that "I wouldn't cooperate with his campaign under any circumstances."
Kerry kept on talking. "I think he was trying to find out where I was going to attack him on this stuff."
"Finally I just told him that I might be a Christian, but I would never forgive him for libeling all of us as war criminals."
Asked by actor Jimmy Stewart back in Vietnam about the morale of the troops, Hoffman had replied: "Morale isn't pretty good, it's damned good."
The problem, he told Stewart, was the American people. "They just ought to take a damned 2-by-4 to the back and stiffen up."
"We have the same problem today, in the [Iraq] war," he told the Post.
"The American people don't have the damned guts to stand up for it, the damned backbone."
Damn straight, man of the year.
John Roberts writes occasionally about the world as he sees it.
