KERRY WINS THE DEBATE

It's painful for a Bush supporter to admit it, but in the debate-as-debate, Kerry overwhelmed Bush. There was one moment when Bush played right into Kerry's hands. On the issue of certainty. Bush was insisting, yet again, that you have to be consistent, without adding anything new. Kerry replied that certainty when you're wrong can get you into trouble. Yeah. No, Mr. President, it doesn't disqualify him for the presidency that he said "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time." That's his opinion, let the voters decide. If I agreed with him, I'd vote for him.

I came away much more convinced that Kerry could be a good president, in one of two senses which I will specify. The word "good" can be meant with instrumental and amoral connotations, i.e. effective, or it can mean morally good. When we say "this is a good knife," we mean it is an effective knife. It could be used to cut carrots or to cut throats. When we say "he is a good man," we mean he is morally good, with good feelings and good intentions.

I don't think Kerry would be a good president in either sense. But last night's debate made me envision Kerry as a good president in the first sense. Not the second. I think Bush has been a moderately good president in the first sense, for reasons that have nothing to do with speaking skills in an improvisatory setting: he's a manager, delegates, reserves the final decisions for himself, and has good judgment. Bush, the president, is a cog in a machine, and that's how it should be: many heads are better than one. But what's more important (to me), Bush is a good president in the second sense.

And we saw a bit of that last night. Bush talked about freedom. The Iraqi people, learning to be free. The transformative power of liberty. It was inarticulate. But it was there.

I don't think Kerry believes in freedom. Nothing I saw last night changed my mind. But that belief was something I brought to the debate.