It Was a Rout

It Was a Rout
By William Rivers Pitt
 t r u t h o u t | Perspective
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/100204Z.shtml
    Friday 01 October 2004
"Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!"

- Howard Cosell

    There was a President on that stage in Florida on Thursday night, and his name was not George.
    This was supposed to be the debate that played to the strengths of Bush and his administration. Foreign policy in general and the protection of the United States from terrorism in particular, according to all the polls and every talking head within earshot, are the areas where George supposedly commands the high ground. That illusion came crashing down on the stage in Coral Gables.
    How else can one describe the demeanor and behavior of Bush, as seen by 40,000,000 television viewers and heard by millions more radio listeners? Shrill. Defensive. Muddled. Angry, very angry. Repetitive. Uninformed. Outmatched. Unprepared. Hesitant. Twenty four minutes into the debate, Bush lost his temper, and spent the remaining hour and six minutes looking for all the world as though he were sucking on a particularly bitter lemon....