Eyes on the prize

Did anybody else notice how, at last week’s debate, Kerry could scarcely look at the camera? He kept his eyes trained squarely on Jim Lehrer, as if he really really wanted his vote. Some speculated that there had been more than one camera and he just didn’t favor CNN, but VP-debate channel flicking didn’t support this hypothesis. There was one camera only.

The current White House tenant, he of middle initial, at least thought to address himself to his putative audience as he spewed his puerile doggerel. Kerry, on the other hand, was thinking so hard about what he was thinking that he almost spaced on what he was doing. As if it was more important to win the debate than the election. But, since he’s our next President, we’ll let it go.

Another thing. W kept going on about “hard work” in the debate. Iraq is “hard work”, the economy is “hard work,” etc. It was probably a rhetorical ploy like his folksy Texanisms and his Cargill jacket and boots, meant to legitimize him in the eyes of the “working man”. But, in the context of the discussion of Edwards’ lack of experience in the Vice Presidential debate, it could also be read as an attempt to impute a work history to Bush. If Edwards’ public resume is shallow, Bush’s was similarly so. A one-term governor who had run a baseball team and some failed wildcatting ventures? Give him the helm of the free world, by all means.