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Saturday, October 09, 2004

Kerry Prepared Well
Bad Typo at NYT


Yesterday, I wrote (although I posted early this AM) a post about an issue that I thought would come up in the debate tonight.  I was only half right.  Education did come up, because Kerry mentioned it, even though no audience member asked about it specifically.  Kerry mentioned the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act in response to a question about the the portrayal of Kerry as "wishy-washy."  In fact, it was the first question of the debate:

No Child Left Behind Act. I voted for it. I support it. I support the goals. But the president has underfunded it by $28 billion. Right here in St. Louis, you've laid off 350 teachers. You're $150, excuse me, I think it's a little more, about $100 million shy of what you ought to be under the No Child Left Behind Act to help your education system here. So I complain about that. I've argued that we should fully fund it. The president says I've changed my mind. I haven't changed my mind. I'm going to fully fund it.
Kerry used his preparation on the issue to provide a specific counterexample in response to the question.  Good move: it shows that he prepared well, and that he can think flexibly in a pressured situation.  Bush did not counter this at all, at any point in the debate.  I have to credit the President, though, for refraining from calling himself the "Education President."

Incidentally, in the NYT transcript of the debate -- which, of course, was put up very quickly; and in which, we might expect a few errors; we see the following:

Those are the words of two Republicans, respected, both on the Foreign Felations Committee. Now I have to tell you, I would do something different. I would reach out to our allies in a way that this president hasn't. He pushed them away, time and again. Pushed them away at the U.N., pushed them away individually.
I don't think I want to know what the Foreign Felations Committee does.