John Kerry

The Newsbuster link is completely ridiculous because there is no doubt that the three debates made for a close race rather than a Bush landslide. Here is a link that shows the poll average for 2004 vs 2012. The very steep jump for Kerry - and fall for Bush was the first debate - the up tick started before the debate with the Iraq and Terrorism speech, but the debate was the big event - http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/obama_vs_romney_compared_to_bush_vs_kerry.html

The Sullivan post is good, but the results are very suspect. They each are based on about 25 people. I suspect that at least the NBC one was likely a focus group where a strong "opinion leader" can impact others. I also suspect that the numbers would have been closer for debate 1 and 2, especially debate 1. The polls moved slightly in Kerry's favor for both 2 and 3 and substantially for 1.

In debate 3, Kerry was good on everything and while watching it, I thought it a complete Kerry win. After the debate, you had the odious Lynne Cheney whining that Kerry was a "bad person" because he mentioned that Mary Cheney was gay (which she was and she was out and working as liaison to the gay community for Coors.) I have a gay sister and two gay daughters and found Kerry's answer warm, kind and inclusive. It is interesting that that was likely the reaction of most people who just watched the debate. (That was also the debate where Kerry quoted Bush saying that he wasn't really concerned where OBL was - and Bush responded by saying that he was "exaggerating" again - apparently forgetting that was an (Faux) accusation against Gore, not Kerry.

I agree with you that in Kerry, Obama has a great coach. Both an outstanding debater and one of the few people who went through the same thing.

The link on Libya is really good. Kerry is clearly doing his job as the first letter ( which seems very Kerryish ) is doing exactly what you would want an oversight committee to do. It addresses all the relevant questions that need to be asked and answered to help define how things could be made safer. It also seems strange that the first post half heartedly poses that this is somehow confrontational with the administration. (Kerry answered this well when speaking to Andrea Mitchell.) The fact is that by proactively and quickly getting these requests for info out, the administration can act quickly to have the sane SFRC address this to counter the political hay that the Republicans want to make. (Politics aside, this is their job and their responsibility.)