OK, two more points about the debate before I move on to other news.
First was Bush’s reaction to Kerry’s criticism of the Iraqi “coalition.”
Kerry: “[W]hen we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That’s not a grand coalition. We can do better.”
Bush: “Well, actually, he forgot Poland.”
One, Kerry factually was right. When the invasion began, there were literally zero troops from Poland in Iraq. Two, Bush probably doesn’t want to emphasize Poland too much right now. Here’s what President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland had to say about the Bush administration and Iraq:
“They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that’s true. We were taken for a ride.”
Bush insisted Kerry was wrong to “forget” about Poland, but it sounds like Poland would like to forget about Bush.
Second, a surprising (but helpful) amount of time was spent discussing the merits of bilateral negotiations with North Korea. Kerry said it’s time for these discussions to resume, while Bush insisted the talks would be a disaster.
“The minute we have bilateral talks, the six-party talks will unwind. That‘s exactly what Kim Jong Il wants…. We must have China’s leverage on Kim Jong Il, besides ourselves. And if you enter bilateral talks, they’ll be happy to walk away from the table. I don’t think that’ll work.”
This really didn’t make any sense.
China wants the U.S. to engage in bilateral discussions with North Korea, though Bush made it sound like the opposite is true. Moreover, Bush never explained why multilateral negotiations would break down if the U.S. began direct talks with North Korea — because there’s no reason to believe this is true. As the New York Times noted today, “[T]here are many examples in which the United States has negotiated with a nation in several different forums at the same time.”
Why would these negotiations be so terribly different? Bush didn’t, or couldn’t, say. I got the impression that he simply opposed the bilateral approach because that’s what his talking points told him, but couldn’t think of a reason why. It was pretty embarrassing.