One of the things that impressed me about the 2000 Gore-Bush debate was how shallow and cartoonish Bush's answers were. I was struck in particular by how especially bad his response was to this question:
MODERATOR: New question. We've been talking about a lot of specific issues. It's often said that in the final analysis about 90% of being the President of the United States is dealing with the unexpected, not with issues that came up in the campaign. Vice President Gore, can you point to a decision, an action you have taken, that illustrates your ability to handle the unexpected, the crisis under fire?
Gore's answer was responsive but unremarkable. Bush's answers, as lame as they were, were predictive of how he has responded to the devastation wrought by Katrina.
Answer 1:
BUSH: I've been standing up to big business, Hollywood, big trial lawyers. Was -- the question about emergencies, wasn't it? MODERATOR: It was about -- okay.
Response Step 1: misconstrue the question entirely. Even so, as we have come to expect, his first thoughts go out to big business, Hollywood and trial lawyers.
Answer 2:
BUSH: You know, as governor, one of the things you have to deal with is catastrophe. I can remember the fires that swept Parker County, Texas. I remember the floods that swept our state. I remember going down to Del Rio, Texas. I have to pay the administration a compliment. James Lee Witt of FEMA has done a really good job of working with governors during times of crisis. But that's the time when you're tested not only -- it's the time to test your metal, a time to test your heart when you see people whose lives have been turned upside down. It broke my heart to go to the flood scene in Del Rio where a fellow and his family got completely uprooted. The only thing I knew was to got aid as quickly as possible with state and federal help, and to put my arms around the man and his family and cry with them. That's what governors do. They are often on the front line of catastrophic situations.
Response Step 2: sit back and wait for other people to clean up enough of the mess so he can go in for a photo op.
I don't know about you, but if my house had been washed away in a flood, being hugged by a weeping idiot would be the uselessest response from the government I could immagine. But I'm not a Texan. Maybe they like that sort of thing down there.
Note that he doesn't envision or advocate actually do anything useful; there's no active role for him in the affair other than constructing an emotional public tableau, with him as the central figure. Like a diorama in Tussuad's wax museum.
And that's exactly what he delivered five years later. In at least this one sad instance his performance measures up exactly to what he led us to expect. The American people can't say they were misled about this.
I couldn't find a video or audio clip of this debate on the web. My recollection is that the actual performance is much worse that this transcript suggests. As weak as it is, it still took him some time to come up with this response. I was astonished to read the next day that Bush had "won" the debate.