The European press is piling on Bush for his performance in Wednesday evening’s debate. The reporters covering the final duel between John Kerry and the president are pretty much in agreement that both the substance and form of Bush’s delivery was not good. Andreas Ruesch covered the story from Washington for NZZ-Online and was one of the first to notice that the president drooled at one point:
Die Wärme des Händedrucks zwischen den beiden Kontrahenten wurde ebenso analysiert wie die geringfügige Differenz in der Farbe ihrer Krawatten, die Bewegung von Augenbrauen ebenso wie das glitzernde Etwas im Mundwinkel des Präsidenten, welches zu beweisen schien, dass auch der mächtigste Mann auf Erden Speichel produziert.
The Netzeitung praised Kerry’s ability to speak directly to the voters. The commentator thought that Bush was put on the defensive for much of the debate:
Aber Bush hat Kerry nicht angegriffen. Noch schlimmer: Mit ein wenig Aggressivität hat er es versucht, scheiterte aber an Kerry, der weniger schroff aber dafür präzise argumentierend dessen Angriffe abwehrte. So kam Bush nicht aus der Defensive.
Caroline König watched the debate for Die Zeit in a Georgetown bar and was merciless in her review of the president’s poor performance. Kerry succeeded in stripping from Bush the last vestiges of authority associated with the office of the president:
Der Senator hat gestern den amtierenden Präsidenten der Aura und Autorität des Amtes endgültig entkleidet und selbst etwas davon angenommen.
The only positive aspect to the eveng for Bush – according to König – was that the baseball championship series was being tevlevised at the same time, diverting a number of viewers from the debate debacle.
But the bad news for Bush continues even after the debate analysis has subsided. There has been considerable press coverage of a poll of citizens in 10 countries (Germany was not included) which found that the overwhelming majority want Bush voted out of office. Continuing on this theme, Telepolis has a fascinating discussion of a course of action proposed by the Guardian, where readers in the UK should write to voters in the so-called “swing-states” to persuade them to vote for John Kerry. The outcome of the US election is too important for Europe to leave it soley up to American voters:
Wer unter politischen Entscheidungen direkt zu leiden hat, sollte auch, so sagt ein fundamentales Gerechtigkeitsempfinden, dabei etwas mitzureden haben, zumal wenn er für die Folgen im Zuge der verordneten Selbstverantwortung gerade stehen soll – oder muss
Equally interesting is the discussion forum attached to this article. One reader warns that people are naive to think that a John Kerry presidency would improve things for Europeans, since he would “drag us all into the US-made disaster (Iraq).”
