Tonight's the night. It all comes down to this. Unless it doesn't. In which case it will come down to events "on the ground" in Iraq. Or maybe Kerry's ability to "define himself." Or right-track/wrong-track numbers. Or the economy. Or job creation. Or the Florida Secretary of State.
In any case, tonight's the big debate, and we'll be watching every second, doing a shot of Jaegermeister every time the words "terror" and "terrorist" are used and doing some real time blogging, so tune into seattletimes.com.
Then, be sure to check in our post-debate commentary, offered offline only at Murphy's in the U District.
Hal Bernton and Craig Welch finish up our epic series on the environmental record. Today, they look at Sen. John Kerry's record, and specifically what he did with commercial fishing -- an all-important industry in his home state -- back in 1996 and thereafter.
Farmed cod reached new lows then, which was about to spur the federal government into action.
"Fishery science, Kerry wrote in a letter co-signed by two other senators, is not 'absolutely precise' and 'uncertainties remain.' It would be better, the letter continued, to hold off on drastic action until more studies could be completed."
Snip.
"In the decade-long struggle to help restore the New England fish stocks, Kerry faced one of the toughest conservation challenges of his career, walking a tightrope between saving fish, whose plight was championed by environmentalists, and saving fishermen, whose fiery independence and passion for the water help define New England. In the process, Kerry helped craft landmark legislation in 1996 to rebuild the fisheries. But later, on occasion, he urged a New England fishery council charged with drafting harvest policy to postpone tough harvest restrictions, according to a review of meeting minutes and correspondence obtained by The Seattle Times under the federal Freedom of Information Act."
Debate? This ain't no debate. David Postman tracked down the moderator of the third Kennedy-Nixon debates. He lives in Renton.
"Shadel turned 96 in July. He's seen a lot of presidential debates since the night in October 1960 when he was in Los Angeles to moderate the third meeting of Vice President Nixon, a Republican, and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Kennedy of Massachusetts. He says presidential debates today are too closely regulated to allow for real news to seep out. He knows he won't see true face-to-face debating with the candidates grilling each other or tough follow-up questions."
Snip.
"He derided the extensive rules that govern the debate and the bipartisan commission that drafts them."
Speaking of extensive rules, Kerry wanted the room to be super air-conditioned, like David Letterman's studio. Bush's team said no. Kerry's a "sweater," as in, one who sweats, and women don't like "sweaters," somebody on the Bush team said, not for attribution.
Darn. BtC's a sweater. No wonder... oh, nevermind.
And, speaking of sweating and the 1960 debates, there's a legendary story about Richard Nixon refusing to wear makeup for the first debate and sweating his face off. He won on radio, but lost on TV. He learned from his errors and used TV masterfully in 1968, when Roger Ailes was his TV producer. Roger Ailes. Who's that? Oh, only the head of Fox News. See why we hate politics? Because these people never die! They just morph into something else! (And, don't worry, we can think of someone on the left, too, like, say, PBS guy Bill Moyers, who ran Lyndon Johnson's campaign in 1964 and ran the dirty "Daisy" ad, which presented a young girl picking daisies followed by the blast of a nuclear bomb.)
Here's a debate prep. Some fact-checking.
Jim Brunner reports on the Nethercutt ad we talked about yesterday, here.
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