Debate Round 2

A few quick reax: Bush certainly seems to have prepared for this one. He was much better than he was in Miami. Even so, he wasn't anywhere close to Kerry's command of the facts. Kerry had two gaffes---once referring to "OG-BYNs," and once stuttering for about 15 seconds during him stem cell answer. Probably not too serious. Bush committed considerably more gaffes, including mispronouncing Silvio Berlusconi's name at least twice.

This debate should prove definitively that Bush simply can't handle criticism. He was so angry. In fairness, both men were tough with each other, but Bush seemed to want to deck Kerry during all his responses. At one point, he got into a quarrel with Charlie Gibson. Was that necessary?

I thought Kerry's parries on being the most liberal senator and being a flip-flopper were awfully strong. His point about the Missouri contingent of US forces in Iraq being larger than the contribution of any ally except for Britain was the most stinging substantive point in the debate.

If the first debate was a knockout, this one definitely went to the scorecards, where, I think, Kerry won by a small but discernable margin.

Also, Bush should not have pretended that he didn't have any stake in a timber company (from factcheck.org via the Daily Kos):

President Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business owner" under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a "small business owner" in 2000 based on $314 of "business income," but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as "royalties" on a different tax schedule.)