Last question: "What 3 mistakes have you made Mr. President?"

[Ernesto]

While chimp just side-stepped the question. I thought Kerry would eagerly hammer him about being the "excuse president". I think Kerry missed a fat, right down the middle pitch that could have been hit out of the park. What gives?

[unblock]

1. kerry doesn't need to do everything himself

some things are best left to surrogates.

the only problem is that democrats don't seem to have surrogates the way republicans do....

[PurityOfEssence]

2. It's the "because I said so" administration

Usually he doesn't even deign to make an excuse.

[Radio-Active]

3. Maybe Kerry felt it was too obvious..

everyone else would pick up on it anyway? I think his reply could have been better though.

[Goldmund]

4. I agree

When Bush sidestepped the obvious question that he must have known was going to be asked yet again, I thought "YES!!!" -- Kerry was going to pounce. But instead, he went through a partial list of Bush mistakes, repeating things that he had already said a bunch of times before.

Maybe he thought he had been too agressive and wanted to tone it down. I can't imagine that he just missed this.

[rucky]

5. Bush couldn't name three mistakes, so Kerry did it for him.

thought he did quite well.

[funky_bug]

9. Agreed!

That was a beautifully loaded question, and one which Bush was bound to fail. He will NOT admit mistakes, this much we already know. The only "mistake" he admitted to was appointing people, in essence, blaming them instead of accepting the blame.

Kerry handled it well. Any response that went too negative would have been immediately spun against us. As is, we have again won the spin war. We should be happy and pat our guy on the back.

[gratuitous]

6. I think Kerry was okay to leave it alone

Because the first thing that would happen if Kerry had pointed out that Bush hadn't answered the question would have been, "Well, how would YOU have answered it?" Then the focus goes off of Bush's non-response and goes onto what mistakes Kerry has made. And if Kerry was smart enough not to answer a question that hadn't been posed to him, that would have become the issue, and made Bush's non-answer a non-issue.

Don't worry Ernesto; we'll collect the rebound on this one and jam it through.

[Ernesto]

11. Yes, the side step was sooo obvious!

My feeling was that Kerry had a strategic reason for letting chimp off the hook on this one..... BTW, I send my thanks to that lady for a great, very revealing question.

[radfringe]

7. the fact that he ducked that question

is painfully obvious

everyone makes mistakes, some little and some big -- however he won't own up to his mistakes, won't take responsibility for them and prefers to blame it on someone else

when Clinton took office - we were in a recession and had a huge deficit -- I don't recall Clinton blaming poppy-bush for the mess, he just dug in and fixed things

[Champion Jack]

8. "Uh..., well, uh ....you see.... I guess,... heh heh heh ...

I shoulda had 'em hide mah receiver better..."

[Cocoa]

10. Kerry should have named three of his own mistakes

I saw him writing when Bush was "speaking" and I was hoping that's what he was going to do.

While answering the lady's question, he could have addressed the "flip-flop" thing at the same time.

[Nobody]

12. It takes courage to admit that you made a mistake

And when you admit having made a mistake, then you have to fix it.

George Bush would never admit to having made a wrong turn on the freeway. He'll circumnavigate the globe before admitting that he made a mistake. He's that insecure.

Never get in a car with George Bush driving.

[beaconess]

13. Bush said he made a couple of mistakes re: appointees but

he's not going to say what they are because he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

So Bush thinks its more important to protect the feelings of the people he gave jobs to than to level with the American people about why it was a mistake to appoint them.won't level with the American people about what's wrong with the people he put into office. Hmmm.

This is consistent with something he said earlier in the exchange. When asked about who he would choose for the Supreme Court, he said, "I'm not telling."

Why is this not surprising - this is the most secretive and sneaky President we've had in recent memory (he even out-hides Nixon). His entire approach to governance is "That's for me to know and you to find out."