"You Can be Certain and be Wrong"

First, I have to say that John Kerry did well tonight, but not great. There were moments when he fumbled a moment for an answer, where he repeated himself. At the very beginning, there were a few moments when you could tell that he still needed to "warm up." He also hit a few out of the park. The headline for this post came from one of those. More on those tomorrow.

I do wonder where the "great debater" George W. was tonight. I believe that was the worst performance by an incumbent president in a debate. Ever. While he attempted to stay on message, he delivered his "canned" lines at the wrong time and too often. He stumbled for words, he hemmed and hawed and worst of all, he forgot - or just didn't care - that the camera was on him during Kerry's responses. The faces and fidgets the camera caught were not flattering.

I'll let the big blogs and the news sites dissect the speech particulars. But from an overall impression, I can't imagine any way that tonight's performance could be spun as anything other than a disaster for the President. CNN - and I'm sure FOX - are busy trying to turn the whole thing into a "close debate." But they will fail.

Again:

Worst debate performance by a sitting president - EVER.