Just got through watching CNN's Bill Schneider tell us all that Dick Cheney most definitely won the debate last night. Why, you might ask?
He counted the number of times the words "John Kerry" were said: 78. Then he counted the number of times either "Bush" or "the President" were said: 35. He then pronounced that this means Dick Cheney was able to "frame the debate" as being about John Kerry instead of Bush, and thus won.
So, I decided to do a little Factcheck.com.. I mean .org.. whatever, about this little theory:
Puh-leeze. Two major errors here: 1) This is a completely asinine way to determine who "won" the debate - it gives no credence the points made by either contestant, just the words they said. 2) John edwards repeatedly refered to the "administration" as opposed to calling Bush by name or referring to the president.
So, I counted up the number of times that the word "administration" appeared specifically in reference to Bush: 22. That brings our tally to 78 "Kerrys" to 57 Bush-related references. Not nearly the massive gap that Schneider would have us believe existed.
To wit: Schneider chose a totally moronic way to decide who "won" the debate, ignoring all context for mere word usage. And on top of that, he didn't even do that very well.
E-mail CNN, anyone?