The Eyes have it.

Betsy R. Vasquez also noticed that Bush was drinking heavily. I chuckled heartily by her take on the debate and how it was a Disaster For Bush:

How bad was it for Bush?

So bad that FOX News' website didn't even run any poll. So bad that all Matt Drudge could try and boast about on his website was that some Democrat called it a draw. So bad that even Bush's people could only try to say, Yeah, he lost, but so what.

Other media outlets have been telling you this election would be close and that the debates might be even as well.

We hate to say it (not that much) but we told them so.

Bush got shellacked so badly it was astounding. He was like a wounded animal desperate for a place to hide but not able to find one.

For the past week the right-wing had been joking about how Kerry was a sweater, would sweat during the debates. But it was Bush who the camera saw wiping sweat from his brow. And drinking heavily from his water glass repeatedly. And fumbling through his papers, desperate to find something else to say besides the one or two talking point phrases he could manage to remember.

There was no escaping or hiding the fact that Bush was not even remotely deserving of being on that stage. He was rambling, incoherent. His answers wandered not only off topic but out of comprehensibility. In short, all of the things the President's handlers have been adeptly hiding from the public - that the emperor truly is butt naked - got stuck right out there in the bright light.

And now America knows.

There is a lot more detail worth reading before she gets the heart of Bush's pathetic performance.

Last night, the Bushies went up there seemingly without a plan except to have Bush repeatedly - and we mean repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly, until he began to sound like Rain Man - say that Kerry, "changes positions." "He sends mixed messages." "He changes positions." "Mixed messages." "He changes positions." (We are not exaggerating here - I am accurately reflecting the number of times Bush mumbled these phrases in incoherent desperation.) "Mixed messages." "Mixed messages." "Mixed signals." "Mixed signals." "Mixed messages." "Mixed messages." "Waver."

And he only stopped babbling that mantra when he was saying not one, not two, but seven times, that Kerry had called Iraq, "...the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place," and not seven, not eight, but eleven times that it is, "hard work," fighting terrorist (in addition to pointing out twice people were, "working hard," at it.

So people are sitting there, seeing Kerry give actual, coherent answers, and Bush is lost, sweating, pounding water likes it's JD, fumbling through papers desperately, sneering and looking miserable and angry, like he wants to leave, and giving answers that are incoherent rambles laced with flat out lies or misstatements.

Like I said earlier, it was important to see the two side by side to make the comparison and to realize who is more presidiential.


(Via Smirking Chimp)