US President George W. Bush managed not to twitch or scowl. But he let his feelings get the better of him, getting hot under the collar in a medium best served cold.
From the outset, his clenched jaw twitched, and he blinked repeatedly, like a man whose contact lens hurt. And when Senator John Kerry turned and confronted him face to face with the latest report on the absence of illicit weapons in Iraq, Bush snickered derisively -- the first sign that the president, though more combative than in the first debate, was not on his game.
And a town hall debate, which was expected to be a strong forum for Bush, turned into a voyeuristic reality show -- would Bush lose it like a contestant on Survivor? He came close a few times.
When Kerry accused Bush of going to war unilaterally, Bush could not suppress his anger. He jumped off his stool and interrupted the moderator, saying, "I've got to answer this."
Gibson wanted to ask whether deploying Reserves constituted a form of military draft, but Bush was adamant.
"Let me just answer what he just said about going alone," he insisted. "You tell [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair we're going alone! Tell Tony Blair we're going alone!"
Bush tried to charm his audience, but there was little laughter when he tried a self-deprecating joke about his first debate, saying his opponent's answer almost made him want to "scowl."
And he barely won a polite laugh when he looked startled after Kerry suggested that he owns a timber company.
"I own a timber company?" Bush exclaimed. "News to me. Need some wood?"
Not unlike their first battle, Bush sounded angry and defensive, as if scolding the undecided.
"Yeah. Great question," he said when a man asked him about the draft. "Thanks. I hear there's rumors on the Internet that we're going to have a draft. We're not going to have a draft. Period."
The folksy terms Bush uses that get fond laughter from Republican fans did not seem to sit quite as well with his earnest, Midwestern audience, though he did score a point by insisting that Kerry could not say one way or the other what his stance is on the late-term abortion procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. He could not resist adding a Reaganism: "You can run, but you can't hide."
RSS