The Second Presidential Debate: a tongue-in-cheek translation
The second debate, translated into snark for your convenience. As before, my liberal bias is pastede on, yay! And they talked forever, you guys. It's long.
CHARLES GIBSON: Hello, and welcome to St. Louis. Tonight our two candidates, President George BUSH and Senator John KERRY will take questions from the only 140 Americans left in the country who haven’t made up their damn minds yet. We will be conducting this debate in a “town-hall meeting” style, which means that the candidates, instead of standing uncomfortably behind rostrums, will balance precariously on stools or wander around the room in the manner of televangelists. Everyone in the audience has submitted two questions, one for each candidate, and I shall choose which of the questions will be asked. Questions like “just who do you think you are, anyway?,” “If you can guess what I had for dinner, you get my vote,” and “Do you think the Rams are going to the Super Bowl this year?” have been removed. Let’s bring out our candidates!
(KERRY and BUSH enter room.)
KERRY: How do you like those poll numbers now, George?
BUSH: Bring it on.
KERRY: Oh, it’s brought.
BUSH: Huh?
(KERRY and BUSH go to their Stools of Doom.)
GIBSON: Making my job even less interesting, I will now call on the audience members to stutter their questions out to the candidates. First question comes from Midwestern Woman #1, with a question for KERRY.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #1: My coworkers say I shouldn’t vote for you because they’ve been watching the tens of thousands of ads that have been on the air here in Missouri that say you’re wishy-washy. Are you?
KERRY: No. But first let me thank Charlie for moderating, Washington University for hosting and the President for being man enough to show up for a second debate. The ads say I’ve changed my mind about the Patriot Act. I voted for it, it’s true, but I don’t like the way John Ashcroft has been implementing some of the parts of it and I think we can change some of it, which the chair of the Republican committee even agrees with. The second one is the No Child Left Behind Act, which I also voted for, on the theory that the administration would, well, pay for it. They haven’t asked for the money to make the law work the way it’s supposed to, and that’s why teachers are being laid off and schools in St. Louis are $100 million short of the money they were promised under the law. But enough about your question. I also want to talk quickly about how the president has been the first since Herbert Hoover, hardly a name you want to be remembered with, to lose jobs over a four-year period. I have a plan to make jobs, and to close loopholes for businesses that currently encourage them to take jobs overseas. BUSH also gave a gazillion dollars back to really, really rich people who aren’t you. I have a plan to give people who are like you, who make under $100,000 a year some of your money back.
BUSH: Yeah, yeah, thanks to the moderator, the panelists, everything this guy said first. But he’s totally wishy-washy. He was right there with me saying that Saddam was totally evil until Howard Dean started gaining in the polls with the anti-war vote and then he decided that Saddam wasn’t so bad. I’ll ignore the whole “and we didn’t find WMD” stuff for a while because I have a feeling I’ll be beating this horse for a lot longer. He didn’t vote for that tax law that we passed that ended the marriage penalty and increased the child tax credit. Granted, it also gave a huge break to multi-millionaires and has taken our nation from record surpluses to record deficits faster than a kid playing Monopoly and landing on Boardwalk with four hotels on it, but he totally hates you middle-class American types.
GIBSON: Well, as luck would have it, Mr. President, our next question deals with the whole WMD thing. Midwestern Man #1, would you like to ask the President your question?
MIDWESTERN MAN #1: So, yeah, you said a couple of days ago that Saddam didn’t have the weapons after all, but he was totally thinking about making some someday, maybe, if given the means and opportunity. Given that this applies to pretty much the entire world, why didn’t we invade North Korea instead?
BUSH: Because we couldn’t beat North Korea, MIDWESTERN MAN #1. I mean, every situation is different. Now I’ll mention 9/11-I went the entire first question without saying it, aren’t you proud of me? -and say that before 9/11 we used a little thing called diplomacy to solve problems. Now we use the 101st Airborne. And in this new world we’re trying to find al Qaeda and we invaded Afghanistan. And when we had old intelligence that said the Saddam might have WMD that he might give to al Qaeda despite piles of evidence to the contrary that said al Qaeda thought Saddam was a sissy and not at all devoted to their cause, well we saddled up and rode right in after him. And well, there wasn’t anything there, and we’re a little upset with our Intel boys about that. But the world’s a better place without Saddam in power, and KERRY totally would have left him there.
KERRY: The world is a scary place, and it’s even scarier because Trigger-Happy over here is in charge. Trigger-Happy wishes I changed my mind about things, because that gives him something to talk about other than why he’s lost jobs, and not funded education adequately, and why no one still has decent health care. And I totally agreed with him that Saddam was a threat. Thought so in 1998, thought so in 2003. But having allies and a plan and stuff are good before going to war with another country. Trigger-Happy rushed off to Iraq by ourselves and alienated our allies, and because of that North Korea and Iran are more dangerous. And by focusing on Iraq, he took his eye off of Osama bin Laden.
BUSH: ::jumping up and down::
GIBSON: Go ahead, Mr. President, since you’re going to talk anyway. Let’s pretend like I still have some control over this debate for a little bit longer.
BUSH: In the last debate, I’m interpreting his remarks to make it sound like KERRY said that America must pass a global test before we can protect ourselves, which is stupid. Also, the sanctions weren’t removing Saddam from power, so we had to go do it.
KERRY: Dipshit, the sanctions weren’t supposed to remove Saddam from power; they were to make sure he didn’t get WMD. Turns out they were doing pretty good. If you had listened to the UN, we might still have $200 billion that we’ve spent in Iraq. Thhhp.
GIBSON: Now MIDWESTERN MAN #2 will ask some more questions about Iraq.
MIDWESTERN MAN #2: The voices in my head tell me that the US is planning on installing a new Iraqi government and then a withdrawal of troops and saying that this is BUSH’s plan. Will you follow BUSH’s plan if you become president?
KERRY: Well, no, because that’s not really his plan and his actual plan isn’t really, you know, working. We have chaos in Iraq right now, as you can see on TV every night, and a place that is certainly not able to hold elections quite yet. Two respected Republicans say that we have totally fucked up that country. If I were president, I’d get our allies involved, instead of saying nothing like our current Administration is doing when NATO offers to help train Iraqis. I’d get the Iraqis trained a lot faster than we’re doing now, then I’d let them run their own country.
BUSH: The Iraqi finance minister came to me and told me how much the Iraqis want to be free and are looking forward to elections. Then he, apparently, turned on the television and got depressed. TV is evil. We’ve spent a whole heaping ton of money on training people in Iraq. All KERRY wants to do is have a summit where he’s going to have to convince a bunch of other people to support a war he doesn’t even like. I talk to all kinds of leaders every day. Except for not Poland any more because their troops are going home. Phooey on Poland.
KERRY: The war we were supposed to be paying attention to? Afghanistan. You know, where al Qaeda and bin Laden were? The reason we went to Iraq was because of the WMD we thought were there, not to topple Saddam. But we did that instead, and now we need to clean up the mess we made.
BUSH: We thought there were weapons when we went in, asshole. And you thought there were some, too. And the war on terror isn’t about bin Laden; it’s about making sure all terrorist organizations never get WMDs. Duh.
GIBSON: Now we will get a question from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #2.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #2: My mom and sister went abroad this summer and everyone hates us! What do you plan to do to fix that?
BUSH: The rest of the world totally misinterpreted what I was trying to do in Iraq. But, as Ronald Reagan did, I’m standing on principle, and like him, I now declare without fear: the Soviet Union was a bad thing. Also, Europe can bite me. And I also decided not to deal with Arafat, which has led to an absolute deterioration in the peace process in the Middle East, which people weren’t too happy about. And I decided that the ICC was bad for our soldiers, so I said no to that. But we have 30 countries, some of which you might actually be able to find on a map, involved in Iraq. We have 40 involved in Afghanistan. And yeah, Europe can totally kiss my ass. America rocks.
KERRY: Note how he didn’t say he’d be doing anything different in the next four years. Four years ago someone asked him when he’d go to war and BUSH said “with a viable exit strategy and only with enough forces to get the job done.” Turns out he doesn’t really do that-we really don’t have enough forces in Iraq to get done what needs to be accomplished, and the general who told him what we would really need got completely undercut by the Secretary of Defense and was forced to retire. I went up to the UN before we voted on the use of force resolution and asked how hard they had really been looking for WMDs, and they told me that if we let the WMD inspectors continue doing their jobs, everything would be fine. But Trigger-Finger wanted to go to war, so off we went.
BUSH: But the other generals tell me we have what we need, not that they would have learned any sort of lesson after the General Shinseki incident. I set the strategy and they implement it-that’s how it works.
KERRY: Yeah, but the military can’t win the peace-it’s a problem that’s larger than just the military. Moron. The military won the war, but you need a much larger force to implement the peace. We didn’t watch the borders, or get allies to help support the peace, or even watch our own ammo dumps, which was incredibly shortsighted. Now we’re getting shot at with our own munitions.
GIBSON: Another question, this one from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #3, who doesn’t have a microphone. Jesus. Is this the presidential debates or a production of “What’s Up, Fargo?”
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #3: Talk to me about Iran. If sanctions don’t work, what will you do?
KERRY: Yeah, that place is pretty scary, and it, and North Korea have gotten much more dangerous while Trigger-Happy was chasing windmills in Iraq. For two years, BUSH completely ignored North Korea, completely undoing everything that the Clinton Administration had done to get North Korea to open their reactor to television cameras. Iran now has 37 tons of the stuff that is used to make enriched uranium, and if you think they’re planning on doing something altruistic with it, say hi to the Easter Bunny the next time you see him. We have to join with the British, French and Germans, and really crack down on proliferation. And BUSH hasn’t even been paying attention to all the loose nukes rolling around Russia. At the pace he’s set us on, it’ll take 13 years to contain all of the Russian nuclear material. I have a plan that’ll get it done in 4. And if Iran doesn’t want to play, I’ll deal with them.
BUSH: I hate you so, so much. The inspectors were being deceived in Iraq-that’s what one of the other reports showed. Too bad we don’t know where the WMDs went, though. And we’re totally involved in Iran. We tell the British, French and Germans that if the Iranians want to play with the rest of civilization, they need to step away from the nukes. And his idea for bilateral relations with North Korea, even though most of the other nations involved with the multilateral talks have their own bilateral negations, is dumb. Even though China has encouraged us to have them, it’s still dumb. I know that Iran and North Korea are evil. That’s why I put them in my “Axis of Evil,” to remind myself. Then I ignored them.
GIBSON: Now we’ve got a question, on, surprise, the military, from MIDWESTERN MAN #3. Sir?
MIDWESTERN MAN #3: With all the military operations we’re involved with, how are you planning to maintain the level without instituting the draft?
BUSH: Well, the Internets (sic) tell me that people are concerned about this, but don’t worry. The all-volunteer Army is really the most effective Army, especially when you pay them and give them housing and stuff, we’ve discovered. We don’t need mass armies any more like we did during the Cold War and we were afraid that Soviet troops were going to come crashing through the Fulda Gap. Our shiny new-ish equipment in places like Korea and Europe is better than massive troop deployments. That way we can send troops to places like Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and other places where the beer isn’t as good as it is in Germany. And apparently our troop presence in South Korea isn’t scaring the North Koreans into not producing nukes, so we might as well pack up from there, too. So we’re bringing them all home, in the sense that their families will live in the US and the troops will live in Iraq. Doesn’t that sound better for everyone? But there won’t be a draft.
KERRY: I don’t support a draft, either. Our forces right now are tremendously overextended. The active duty’s been going from hot spot to hot spot, and our Guard and Reserve units are practically active duty themselves with the time they’ve been spending in Afghanistan and Iraq. With stop-loss policies that are currently in place, people can’t get out even if they want to, and that’s like a back-door draft. And I wouldn’t exactly jump to the “well paid” part of why it’s wonderful to be in the military-they could use a pay increase. And when they are deployed it hurts our middle class. It hurts our communities-many of the Guard and Reservists are the first responders in their home communities. I’m going to add another 40,000 active duty to our military, and make sure they’re not overextended because forming alliances means that it doesn’t have to be our men and women serving everywhere all the time. Other nations can take a turn, too.
GIBSON: Go ahead, Mr. President. Talk about the back-door draft of Reservists.
BUSH: Yeah, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to jump around and demand that he tell Tony Blair that we’re really going it alone, although the British only have 8,000 troops in Iraq. Tell Italy we’re going alone. Tell Poland. Or don’t tell Poland-they’re leaving soon. Shoot. We’ve got 30 countries with us, asshole.
KERRY: If Missouri were a country, it’d have the 3rd largest number of forces on the ground in Iraq, behind the US and the UK. Ninety percent of the casualties are Americans, 90 percent of the cost of it is coming from the US taxpayers. Grand coalition, my ass.
GIBSON: The next question comes from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #4
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #4: Why do you think there haven’t been any other attacks on American soil since 9/11?
KERRY: BUSH and his folks tell us that it’s not a matter of if, but when, and the pattern of al Qaeda supports that-it was five to seven years between the first bombing of the World Trade Center and the second. These folks plot, plan, and wait. And to know what they’re plotting, you need to have the intel. And I think I’m in a better position to get intelligence because you need cooperation with the rest of the world to get the intelligence that the rest of the world has. Right now, we’re not getting the greatest cooperation. And I’d put some serious money into homeland security. Everything you bring onto an airplane is screened, but the cargo isn’t. That’s scary. BUSH chose a tax cut over better security, which makes him heartless and cruel.
BUSH: We’ve tripled the budget from $10 billion to $30 billion, so shut up. And he voted in 1993 to cut the intelligence budget, so double shut up. We have to be right every single time; they only have to get lucky once. This is why it’s essential that the Patriot Act, which lets us short cut some of those pesky Constitutional guarantees, is so important for intelligence gathering purposes. My opponent is a bonehead. If he fails in Iraq, it’ll be a haven for terrorists because it’s totally not already. I don’t see how you can lead in Iraq if you thought it was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time. KERRY doesn’t get that. We have to chase down the terrorists and their safe havens. As long as it’s not Saudi Arabia.
GIBSON: We’ll extend on this one because I’m a little afraid of this whole “not if but when” concept. Expand for me, please.
KERRY: First of all, if you say “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time,” one more time, I’m going to have no other choice but to smack you in the face with my microphone. Just saying. But yeah, BUSH and his experts say that these folks are deadly, they are serious, and they don’t want anything except to kill. That’s why I’ll never stop hunting them down. And just throwing money at the problem doesn’t solve the problem. You have to make sure you’ve done everything you can to make America secure. BUSH chose a tax cut instead.
BUSH: I’ll talk about that tax cut later. But yeah, I’m worried, even though we have hugely talented people working overtime on this issue. And the long-term solution to this is to spread liberty, even though I’ve totally done nothing to increase the public diplomacy budget of the State Department that is devoted to that idea. Moving on.
GIBSON: Let’s switch to a health care question from MIDWESTERN MAN #4.
MIDWESTERN MAN #4: Why did you block the re-importation of prescription drugs from Canada, which knocks 40 to 60 percent off of what I’m paying on my meds?
BUSH: I haven’t done it yet, but I want to make sure those wily Canadians aren’t trying to kill you all. Making sure they haven’t gotten the med from a third world, like Venus or Neptune. Another way is to make sure generic brands of the meds make it onto the market, and to sign up seniors for their Medicare discount cards. Excuse me while I do a little dance on the excessive grooviness of the new Medicare law. It’s totally modernized the system, in the sense of “kicked it into the 1970s.”
KERRY: I’m so calling you on your bullshit. If he thought re-importation from Canada was a good idea, why’d he block the bill that the Senate had passed to implement the process? We had safety checks in place and everything, and these drugs aren’t coming from Burundi-they are coming from the US, in US bottles, and are just being sold in Canada. And he totally fucked up Medicare, too. He made it illegal for Medicare to buy drugs in bulk like the VA does-which would have saved $139 billion. He sides with the power companies, the oil companies, and the drug companies. He’s an evil, evil bastard and must be stopped.
BUSH: Bite me. If the meds prove to be safe, bring ‘em on in. And Clinton wouldn’t do it either, so shut up. You’ve been in the Senate 20 years and haven’t done diddly-shit to fix the Medicare problem.
KERRY: I so did. 1997, baby. We fixed Medicare, and we balanced the budget, too, something you haven’t done, oh, ever. We paid down the debt, created 23 million jobs, and then we threw a huge fucking party and didn’t invite you to it. 1997 was a fantastic year. You’ve made the biggest deficits in the history of the United States. Not only that, but if you added more debt to the US debt in four years than the combined effort of every president from George Washington to Ronald Reagan. Man, you suck.
GIBSON: Next question, please. MIDWESTERN WOMAN #5, it’s all you.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #5: Yeah, you talk about the rising cost of health care but chose a man who made millions suing medical professionals as your VP. What’s the deal with that?
KERRY: Because he wrote the Patients’ Bill of Rights, which totally rocks. And there does need to be some tort reform, it’s true, and we need to do something to help out the OB/GYNs and the brain surgeons and such. But it’s less than 1 percent of the total cost of health care. Everyone’s premiums have gone up-they’ve gone up 64 percent in Missouri. 5 million people have lost health insurance under BUSH. I’m going to give you health care-read all about on my spiffy-cool web page. We’re going to insure children, let you buy into the federal health care system, and let you buy into Medicare early. We rule.
BUSH: ::makes gagging noises:: So, so, so wrong. Stupid wrong. He’s totally the most liberal guy in the Senate. And in a place with visionary, forward thinking senators like Don Nickles, Orrin Hatch, Rick Santorum, Trent Lott and Zell Miller? Let me tell you friends, it takes a lot to look like a liberal in that room. He’d pay for this idea by taking all of your money. Don’t be chumps. And it’d be a health care system run by the federal government, which is a deeply bad idea. Look how badly they’ve screwed up the war in Iraq. Wait, I don’t mean that. Anyway, totally bad idea.
GIBSON: Let’s have some follow-up on this question.
KERRY: You bet. Yeah, we should probably look at capping some of the punitive damages in lawsuits, but really all BUSH is trying to do right now is scare people. And honestly, what the fuck’s a “compassionate conservative”? You’ve cut a half million kids from school lunch programs; you’ve cut 365,000 from health care and run up the big deficit in American history. You’re totally batting 0 for 2 here, boy. You don’t have a plan. I have a plan. It’s in binders and has charts and everything, which I didn’t bring because really, Ross Perot references = bad.
BUSH: Yeah, now you want a cap? They were voting on a bill in the Senate on that recently-maybe you should have voted. I won’t mention that I’ve only been Washington for 50 something days since the beginning of the year, but whatever. It won’t pass because of the trial lawyers, like, oh, the one that’s your vice presidential candidate.
GIBSON. Next question, from MIDWESTERN MAN #5.
MIDWESTERN MAN #5: You’ve had a Republican majority in the House and the Senate for pretty much your entire term, and you haven’t vetoed a single spending bill. Excluding the $120 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ve spent $700 billion more than you’ve collected in revenue. Why is your excessive overspending better than what KERRY proposes?
BUSH: Shit. I really wished you hadn’t asked that question.
KERRY: ::does the Cabbage Patch::
BUSH: Well, we had a recession when the 1990s bubble burst and then we went to war and spent money on bullets and soldier’s salaries and um, $30 billion for homeland security. Oh, and that enormous tax cut that gave you, like $436 back. It seemed like a good idea at the time because I swear somewhere I read that tax cuts during a war make more jobs or something. Too bad the current jobless rate doesn’t seem to bear that out, but anyway. But non-military discretionary funding, which means, you know, schools, veterans’ health care, agricultural subsidies, environmental regulation money, cops and fire department money, violence against women funding, and everything else that the government is supposed to take care of year to year have gone from 15 percent growth to only 1 percent. And now you don’t have to wonder why only the military has money any more.
KERRY: Let me start by saying my health care plan wasn’t a government takeover because we all know that is a bad idea. You keep the choices-you choose your doctor, you choose your plan, you choose whether or not you even want to be a part of it. Now let’s talk turkey. When BUSH came to office, he has a $5.6 trillion surplus. With a “TR”-that’s a lot of money. Now we’re at a $2.6 trillion deficit, with another TR. That’s a huge switch. He’s the first president in 72 years to lose jobs while in office. This is also the first war in history where we’ve had a tax cut because that makes no kind of sense. One percent of Americans got $89 billion in tax cuts last year-more than the combined total of everyone who made $100,000 or less. I’ll cut taxes for everyone making under $200,000. The rich can afford to pay a little more.
GIBSON: That’s great, really, both of you. But how are you going to cut the deficit in half, like you’ve both promised to do?
BUSH: We’ll make sure Congress, which is run by my party, doesn’t overspend on stuff. Yeah, that’ll do it. But remember, it’s totally not my fault-the economy tanked because of the Evil Clinton Administration. I can’t really prove that, though.
KERRY: Yeah, that second tax cut? The one that was supposed to make 5.6 million jobs? Made negative 1.6 million jobs. You suck at math, dude. And the rest of that tax cut went to ridiculously wealthy people. He wanted to give a $254 million refund to fucking Enron with government money. He’s insane.
GIBSON: Next question, from MIDWESTERN MAN #6.
MIDWESTERN MAN #6: KERRY, look in the camera and promise that you won’t sign legislation to increase the tax burden on folks making less than $200,000 a year.
KERRY: Sure thing. And I’ll even mention my tax cuts again: I’ll raise the child-care tax credit by $1,000. I’ll have a $4,000 tax credit for college tuition for parents. And I have a way of paying for it. I’ve even cut some of my spiffy ideas because BUSH keeps spending money. We’ll go back to the good life in the 1990s, but without the intern scandals.
BUSH: Yeah, but you suck. You’ve voted to break the spending cap 200 times and your numbers don’t add up. He’s totally lying to you, and he wants to spent $2.2 trillion and has only taxed the rich for $600 or $800 billion. We’ve come up with new jobs over the last 13 months that should make up for the fact that we’d have an overall loss of jobs. And I’m also going to have an energy plan, although I don’t know exactly what that has to do with lowering the tax burden, so whatever.
GIBSON: My brain hurts. Go through those numbers again for me?
KERRY: Sure thing. First of all, we don’t want to spend $2.2 trillion. And he’s forgetting to mention the billions we’ll stop going out of the country when we close the loopholes that corporations are currently exploiting. And I was there in 1985 when the Democrats first started making noise to balance the budget, and then voted to balance the budget in 1993 and 1997. So phooey on him.
BUSH: Yeah, but counting procedural motions and votes, he’s voted to raise your taxes 98 times. And he’s also liberal, liberal, liberal.
GIBSON. Next question, from MIDWESTERN MAN #7.
MIDWESTERN MAN #7: Now without shooting water out your nose, Mr. President, I want you to tell me how you think you rate as an environmentalist. What have you done to make our air and water safer?
BUSH: Well, I’ve chopped down a lot of trees, if that’s what you mean. That’s made our forests safer from fire damage. I’ve also asked someone to look into hydrogen cars, although everyone gave me kind of strange glances and then changed the subject. But I think I’m a good steward of the land.
KERRY: ::chokes, falls off stool::
GIBSON: ::bangs him on the back::
BUSH: Yeah. We’ve got cleaner air and more restored land since I’ve been president.
KERRY: That is the biggest load of horseshit I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. Jesus. “BUSH” and “environmentalist” go together about as well as “bin Laden” and “mentally stable.” When it comes to the environment, this Administration has one of the worst records, you know, ever. Clear Skies is one of those Orwellian names you slap on something to make it sound great. You know, like “No Child Left Behind,” or “Patriot Act.” We’re going backwards in terms of environmental standards-their air quality guy at EPA resigned in disgust for what they were doing. They’ve gone backwards on definitions of wetlands; decided that global warming isn’t real. When I’m president, I’m going to believe in science.
BUSH: I’m so an environmentalist. Just like Smokey the Bear, man. And the Kyoto treaty was stupid. And the air is totally cleaner than it used to be. Maybe this is because all the manufacturing jobs are leaving the country and the plants are closing down?
KERRY: Okay, I admit that Kyoto was flawed. But you didn’t even try to make it better-you took 160 countries and ten years of work and just said no. You are an asshole.
GIBSON: Time for a question about jobs from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #6.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #6: How can the US continue to be competitive in manufacturing jobs considering we all expect to, you know, make a salary we can live on?
KERRY: Well, the tax benefit that companies currently enjoy if they pick up and leave the country certainly isn’t helping anything. So we’ll close that loophole, and add a tax benefit if they create manufacturing jobs. This also folds into the whole “health care is ridiculously expensive, yo” problem that I talked about earlier. Which I have a plan for, and that one, sitting over there fuming, doesn’t. No plan, nope. And I pay for it by raising taxes on richest people: him, me, and Charlie Gibson. Because you, Middle American Who Hasn’t Made Their Mind Up Yet for the Love of God Vote For Me, deserve it. You deserve health care, and education that works, and clean air, and chocolate, and an aggravation-free commute to work without the asshole who cuts you off and then sits there for thirty minutes in front of you with his turn signal blinking. Anyway, by improving our educational system, we’ll graduate kids who are interests in technology and science that extends beyond their Xboxes. We’re going to put our colleges and universities to work for us. We’re going to stop our dependence on Middle East oil, too, which doesn’t have much to do with anything, but I haven’t mentioned it yet.
BUSH: Yeah, well back to health care for a second. KERRY still hates medical liability regulations. And we should allow small businesses to pool together on health care plans so they can buy insurance at the same rates the big businesses do. This is different from saying, “OK, let me incent you to go on the government." And his plan totally won’t work. And the best way to keep jobs in the US is to have a better energy plan. I don’t know why these are connected, but they are so just listen, okay? I told Congress to come up with a plan that encourages conversation and encourages the use of biodiesels and things. And the Senate totally hates my plan and it’s really all his fault, because he and his running mate are totally Senators and should be voting for my brilliant plan. I’d loosen up regulations here, and increase legal reform. Oh, and his plan would totally tax small business owners, too, you know.
GIBSON: Let’s keep talking about this. How are you going to stop all out-sourcing-the tax incentives aren’t going to do it.
KERRY: I didn’t say I could stop it all-that would be something incredibly stupid to claim. I just want to create a level playing field. But back to what BUSH just said. Even the Wall Street Journal said that 96 percent of small businesses wouldn’t be affected by plan. He only thought of it because he uses that loophole to get $84 from the timber company he owns, which makes him a small business. It makes Dick Cheney a small business. A small business of evil, but that’s neither here nor there.
BUSH: I own a timber company? Huh. Need some wood?
GIBSON: Ewww. Never say that to me again.
KERRY: I second that.
BUSH: I’ve met some small business guys. Seventy percent of all the new jobs in this country are created by small businesses. Taxes are just going to go up. That’s all I wanted to say.
GIBSON: Now that I’m back from poking my eye out with a spork for the whole “need some wood?” comment, I think we’re ready for another question from MIDWESTERN MAN #8.
MIDWESTERN MAN #8: Okay, the Patriot Act takes away some of my rights, especially regarding the Fourth Amendment. Patriot II would take more. Justification for that, please?
BUSH: No it doesn’t, unless you’re a terrorist. This law gives the FBI the ability to talk to each other. They still don’t, but now they don’t have a legislative excuse. But no, the Patriot Act doesn’t really affect you all that much. Really. Honestly. ::nervous smile::
KERRY: Whatever, dude. The Republican Party chair said that this bill needs to be changed and fixed. The chair of the House Judiciary Committee also said it’ll be over his dead body that another bill likes this gets passed before it is thoroughly checked. John Ashcroft has twice applied the law in ways that are completely inappropriate, and that’s coming from the IG of his own department. People in this country have been put in jail for months without being allowed to contact a lawyer. Sneak-and-peek searches are allowed. Infiltrations of churches and political meetings are allowed without anyone needing to show that there’s any kind of potential criminal activity. I voted it for it. 99 US Senators voted for it. And there were some parts, like the coordination that was supposed to happen between the FBI and the CIA, that were absolutely necessary. But some of the provisions were bullshit and need to be changed.
GIBSON: And now it’s time for a total awkward social issue discussion. MIDWESTERN WOMAN #7? You’re up.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #7: Talk to me about embryonic stem cell research, please.
KERRY: Shit. Well, Nancy Reagan and Michael J. Fox think that embryonic stem cell research would be a good idea. So does Superman-I mean, Chris Reeve. Ethically guided embryonic research could be done. There are 100,000 to 200,000 frozen embryos that are slated to be destroyed in fertility clinics. Let’s see if we can use these to cure Parkinson’s disease, or diabetes, or Alzheimer’s or spinal cord injuries. I think that is another way of respecting life.
BUSH: And I think you’re an evil baby killer. I think that the 20 lines that are already active should be enough for scientists to figure out if this is going to work, and I think that we should really be pursuing adult stem cell research.
KERRY: The problem with the stem cells he’s allowing to be used as research are all contaminated with mice cells and that makes them pretty much useless to scientists at this point. I think that we should look into using other embryos, embryos that have already been slated to be destroyed anyway, to try to make some scientific progress.
BUSH: And I think that those cells are life. The original lines had been destroyed before I had anything to do with it, so I didn’t have to make a moral call on it. Let’s keep using those.
GIBSON: Another question from MIDWESTERN MAN #9.
MIDWESTERN MAN #9: If you had to fill a Supreme Court justice position, just who would that right-wing crazy be?
BUSH: Yeah, I’m not telling you that. But they would have to allow the Pledge of Allegiance to be said in schools, even with the “under God” part in it. And then I’ll mangle the interpretation of the Dred Scott case in a way that’s got my high school history teacher writhing in pain on the ground. But they’d be strict constuctionalists. Yeah. We’ll stick with that as an answer. Did that help you any?
KERRY: Let’s put it this way: his favorite justices on the Court right now are Thomas and Scalia. If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will. I think the mark of a good justice is to not be able to discover, when you read their decision, whether they are liberal or conservative, male or female, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim or whatever. They should just deliver a good, fair decision. These kind of judges don’t live on this planet, but, you know, I’m hopeful.
GIBSON: Thank God, we’re down to the last two questions. First one to you, KERRY, from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #8.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #8: Let’s talk about abortion. What would you say to someone who thinks abortion is murder and doesn’t want government money funding abortions?
KERRY: Oh, goody. I would tell them that I’m Catholic, raised Catholic and that my faith plays a part in who I am today. And that I believe that I can’t take something that’s an article of faith for me and legislate it for everyone. I can counsel people, talk to them about responsibility and making choices. But I have to respect other people’s views on this. We need to let people be educated about it, to know what their options are, and not to deny a poor person the option they are Constitutionally entitled to if they can’t afford it any other way. So I’d also lift the global gag rule-teaching people about family planning prevents AIDS, and stops unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children.
BUSH: Yeah, I don’t understand what he said at all. It’s got nuance and something about not legislating your beliefs onto everyone else, and I’ve never heard of such a concept. I don’t think the government should pay for abortions at all. I signed the ban partial-birth abortions, although the language is nebulous enough that it could apply to second trimester abortions as well. I think parents should be notified if a girl is thinking about having an abortion-he disagrees. I signed the Unborn Victims of Violence bill that would put a murderer up for two murders if by killing a mother he kills an unborn baby as well. In a certain light, this could be applied to doctors, too, and that’ll be brought before the Supreme Court, but that’s for another time. I think we should have good adoption laws, too, although I haven’t spent a lot of money dealing with that issue.
KERRY: It’s so not that simple. The partial-birth bill didn’t have any kind of exception for the life or health of the mother and that makes it a bad bill. And I’m against parental notifications if it requires a 16-year-old girl who was raped by her father to get his damned permission. The bill didn’t include a judicial intervention clause-that makes it a bad bill. It’s so not as black and white as the world BUSH would like to live in makes it.
BUSH: Well, it’s easy when they say are you for partial-birth abortions or not, even though it’s totally not the name of a medical procedure of any kind. He voted against it: therefore, baby killing monster.
GIBSON: Last question from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #9. Shit, where’d she go?
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #9: I’m over here.
GIBSON: Man. ::smacks head on desk and cries::
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #9: Name three mistakes you’ve made, BUSH, in the last four years. They don’t have to be in alphabetical order or anything.
BUSH: I think I’ll tap dance around this question tonight. There were some errors tactically that military strategists will probably look back and wonder what kind of crack we were smoking, but big things? I can’t think of any. Afghanistan, good. Iraq, good. Tax cut, good. There were some appointments I regret making, but I won’t name them on national TV.
CHRISTIE TODD WHITMAN (at home): Fuck you, asshole.
JOHN ASHCROFT (at home): ::polishes resumes, sings himself a sad, sad song::
BUSH: But yeah, I’m pretty much perfect. How are you?
KERRY: I’ve got a list. It’s alphabetized, too. May I? Let’s start with Half-assed War in Iraq. No coalition, no clear plan, no nothing. We didn’t guard our own ammo dumps. We didn’t armor the Humvees we sent to a war zone. We don’t have enough body armor for the troops currently serving there. You fucked up sending us to war, dude, and saying that Saddam maybe could’ve attacked us ten years from now as justification for the mess we’re in now is just plain wrong.
BUSH: Shut up, Mr. “I Voted for it before I Voted Against it” Man. Saddam was a badass and needed to go.
KERRY: I made a mistake talking about a vote. You made a mistake sending people to war. You’re still the bigger jerk.
GIBSON: Closing statement time. KERRY, you up?
KERRY: Unless you want to go, BUSH.
BUSH: Whatever.
KERRY: Fine, I’ll go. Thank you all for your great questions tonight. As you can see, we have some differences on the issues. I would like you to notice that I didn’t once beat him over the head with my stool, although at points I was sorely tempted. I won’t let some other country dictate policy to us, but I believe that Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan were right-we’re stronger when we’re working through alliances. I have plans to deal with Iraq, plans to deal with terrorism. New start, fresh credibility-vote for me, please, please, please. Also, I’ll fix health care, protect the environment, actually fund No Child Left Behind, and guarantee each of you a decent cup of coffee in the morning. Whatever you want. Vote for me, please?
BUSH: Yeah, this has totally been a treat. Something I want to repeat all the time, except, you know, not. We’ve added 1.9 million jobs in the last 13 months, increased farm incomes and homeownership. Life is pretty good. And to keep it that way, vote for me and my plan of low taxes, no enlargement in the federal government, regulations down, a health care policy that hasn’t actually been explained, and an energy policy that makes us less dependent on foreign oil. Yeah, and we’re still at war, so switching leaders would be bad. We’ll continue looking for al Qaeda and promoting freedom. Afghanistan is voting tomorrow, Iraq will vote soon. Elections + free society=OTP! Vote for me, me, me.
Again, if you're looking for an actual transcript, complete with fact-checking, head to The Washington Post.
*collapses in bed*
CHARLES GIBSON: Hello, and welcome to St. Louis. Tonight our two candidates, President George BUSH and Senator John KERRY will take questions from the only 140 Americans left in the country who haven’t made up their damn minds yet. We will be conducting this debate in a “town-hall meeting” style, which means that the candidates, instead of standing uncomfortably behind rostrums, will balance precariously on stools or wander around the room in the manner of televangelists. Everyone in the audience has submitted two questions, one for each candidate, and I shall choose which of the questions will be asked. Questions like “just who do you think you are, anyway?,” “If you can guess what I had for dinner, you get my vote,” and “Do you think the Rams are going to the Super Bowl this year?” have been removed. Let’s bring out our candidates!
(KERRY and BUSH enter room.)
KERRY: How do you like those poll numbers now, George?
BUSH: Bring it on.
KERRY: Oh, it’s brought.
BUSH: Huh?
(KERRY and BUSH go to their Stools of Doom.)
GIBSON: Making my job even less interesting, I will now call on the audience members to stutter their questions out to the candidates. First question comes from Midwestern Woman #1, with a question for KERRY.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #1: My coworkers say I shouldn’t vote for you because they’ve been watching the tens of thousands of ads that have been on the air here in Missouri that say you’re wishy-washy. Are you?
KERRY: No. But first let me thank Charlie for moderating, Washington University for hosting and the President for being man enough to show up for a second debate. The ads say I’ve changed my mind about the Patriot Act. I voted for it, it’s true, but I don’t like the way John Ashcroft has been implementing some of the parts of it and I think we can change some of it, which the chair of the Republican committee even agrees with. The second one is the No Child Left Behind Act, which I also voted for, on the theory that the administration would, well, pay for it. They haven’t asked for the money to make the law work the way it’s supposed to, and that’s why teachers are being laid off and schools in St. Louis are $100 million short of the money they were promised under the law. But enough about your question. I also want to talk quickly about how the president has been the first since Herbert Hoover, hardly a name you want to be remembered with, to lose jobs over a four-year period. I have a plan to make jobs, and to close loopholes for businesses that currently encourage them to take jobs overseas. BUSH also gave a gazillion dollars back to really, really rich people who aren’t you. I have a plan to give people who are like you, who make under $100,000 a year some of your money back.
BUSH: Yeah, yeah, thanks to the moderator, the panelists, everything this guy said first. But he’s totally wishy-washy. He was right there with me saying that Saddam was totally evil until Howard Dean started gaining in the polls with the anti-war vote and then he decided that Saddam wasn’t so bad. I’ll ignore the whole “and we didn’t find WMD” stuff for a while because I have a feeling I’ll be beating this horse for a lot longer. He didn’t vote for that tax law that we passed that ended the marriage penalty and increased the child tax credit. Granted, it also gave a huge break to multi-millionaires and has taken our nation from record surpluses to record deficits faster than a kid playing Monopoly and landing on Boardwalk with four hotels on it, but he totally hates you middle-class American types.
GIBSON: Well, as luck would have it, Mr. President, our next question deals with the whole WMD thing. Midwestern Man #1, would you like to ask the President your question?
MIDWESTERN MAN #1: So, yeah, you said a couple of days ago that Saddam didn’t have the weapons after all, but he was totally thinking about making some someday, maybe, if given the means and opportunity. Given that this applies to pretty much the entire world, why didn’t we invade North Korea instead?
BUSH: Because we couldn’t beat North Korea, MIDWESTERN MAN #1. I mean, every situation is different. Now I’ll mention 9/11-I went the entire first question without saying it, aren’t you proud of me? -and say that before 9/11 we used a little thing called diplomacy to solve problems. Now we use the 101st Airborne. And in this new world we’re trying to find al Qaeda and we invaded Afghanistan. And when we had old intelligence that said the Saddam might have WMD that he might give to al Qaeda despite piles of evidence to the contrary that said al Qaeda thought Saddam was a sissy and not at all devoted to their cause, well we saddled up and rode right in after him. And well, there wasn’t anything there, and we’re a little upset with our Intel boys about that. But the world’s a better place without Saddam in power, and KERRY totally would have left him there.
KERRY: The world is a scary place, and it’s even scarier because Trigger-Happy over here is in charge. Trigger-Happy wishes I changed my mind about things, because that gives him something to talk about other than why he’s lost jobs, and not funded education adequately, and why no one still has decent health care. And I totally agreed with him that Saddam was a threat. Thought so in 1998, thought so in 2003. But having allies and a plan and stuff are good before going to war with another country. Trigger-Happy rushed off to Iraq by ourselves and alienated our allies, and because of that North Korea and Iran are more dangerous. And by focusing on Iraq, he took his eye off of Osama bin Laden.
BUSH: ::jumping up and down::
GIBSON: Go ahead, Mr. President, since you’re going to talk anyway. Let’s pretend like I still have some control over this debate for a little bit longer.
BUSH: In the last debate, I’m interpreting his remarks to make it sound like KERRY said that America must pass a global test before we can protect ourselves, which is stupid. Also, the sanctions weren’t removing Saddam from power, so we had to go do it.
KERRY: Dipshit, the sanctions weren’t supposed to remove Saddam from power; they were to make sure he didn’t get WMD. Turns out they were doing pretty good. If you had listened to the UN, we might still have $200 billion that we’ve spent in Iraq. Thhhp.
GIBSON: Now MIDWESTERN MAN #2 will ask some more questions about Iraq.
MIDWESTERN MAN #2: The voices in my head tell me that the US is planning on installing a new Iraqi government and then a withdrawal of troops and saying that this is BUSH’s plan. Will you follow BUSH’s plan if you become president?
KERRY: Well, no, because that’s not really his plan and his actual plan isn’t really, you know, working. We have chaos in Iraq right now, as you can see on TV every night, and a place that is certainly not able to hold elections quite yet. Two respected Republicans say that we have totally fucked up that country. If I were president, I’d get our allies involved, instead of saying nothing like our current Administration is doing when NATO offers to help train Iraqis. I’d get the Iraqis trained a lot faster than we’re doing now, then I’d let them run their own country.
BUSH: The Iraqi finance minister came to me and told me how much the Iraqis want to be free and are looking forward to elections. Then he, apparently, turned on the television and got depressed. TV is evil. We’ve spent a whole heaping ton of money on training people in Iraq. All KERRY wants to do is have a summit where he’s going to have to convince a bunch of other people to support a war he doesn’t even like. I talk to all kinds of leaders every day. Except for not Poland any more because their troops are going home. Phooey on Poland.
KERRY: The war we were supposed to be paying attention to? Afghanistan. You know, where al Qaeda and bin Laden were? The reason we went to Iraq was because of the WMD we thought were there, not to topple Saddam. But we did that instead, and now we need to clean up the mess we made.
BUSH: We thought there were weapons when we went in, asshole. And you thought there were some, too. And the war on terror isn’t about bin Laden; it’s about making sure all terrorist organizations never get WMDs. Duh.
GIBSON: Now we will get a question from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #2.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #2: My mom and sister went abroad this summer and everyone hates us! What do you plan to do to fix that?
BUSH: The rest of the world totally misinterpreted what I was trying to do in Iraq. But, as Ronald Reagan did, I’m standing on principle, and like him, I now declare without fear: the Soviet Union was a bad thing. Also, Europe can bite me. And I also decided not to deal with Arafat, which has led to an absolute deterioration in the peace process in the Middle East, which people weren’t too happy about. And I decided that the ICC was bad for our soldiers, so I said no to that. But we have 30 countries, some of which you might actually be able to find on a map, involved in Iraq. We have 40 involved in Afghanistan. And yeah, Europe can totally kiss my ass. America rocks.
KERRY: Note how he didn’t say he’d be doing anything different in the next four years. Four years ago someone asked him when he’d go to war and BUSH said “with a viable exit strategy and only with enough forces to get the job done.” Turns out he doesn’t really do that-we really don’t have enough forces in Iraq to get done what needs to be accomplished, and the general who told him what we would really need got completely undercut by the Secretary of Defense and was forced to retire. I went up to the UN before we voted on the use of force resolution and asked how hard they had really been looking for WMDs, and they told me that if we let the WMD inspectors continue doing their jobs, everything would be fine. But Trigger-Finger wanted to go to war, so off we went.
BUSH: But the other generals tell me we have what we need, not that they would have learned any sort of lesson after the General Shinseki incident. I set the strategy and they implement it-that’s how it works.
KERRY: Yeah, but the military can’t win the peace-it’s a problem that’s larger than just the military. Moron. The military won the war, but you need a much larger force to implement the peace. We didn’t watch the borders, or get allies to help support the peace, or even watch our own ammo dumps, which was incredibly shortsighted. Now we’re getting shot at with our own munitions.
GIBSON: Another question, this one from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #3, who doesn’t have a microphone. Jesus. Is this the presidential debates or a production of “What’s Up, Fargo?”
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #3: Talk to me about Iran. If sanctions don’t work, what will you do?
KERRY: Yeah, that place is pretty scary, and it, and North Korea have gotten much more dangerous while Trigger-Happy was chasing windmills in Iraq. For two years, BUSH completely ignored North Korea, completely undoing everything that the Clinton Administration had done to get North Korea to open their reactor to television cameras. Iran now has 37 tons of the stuff that is used to make enriched uranium, and if you think they’re planning on doing something altruistic with it, say hi to the Easter Bunny the next time you see him. We have to join with the British, French and Germans, and really crack down on proliferation. And BUSH hasn’t even been paying attention to all the loose nukes rolling around Russia. At the pace he’s set us on, it’ll take 13 years to contain all of the Russian nuclear material. I have a plan that’ll get it done in 4. And if Iran doesn’t want to play, I’ll deal with them.
BUSH: I hate you so, so much. The inspectors were being deceived in Iraq-that’s what one of the other reports showed. Too bad we don’t know where the WMDs went, though. And we’re totally involved in Iran. We tell the British, French and Germans that if the Iranians want to play with the rest of civilization, they need to step away from the nukes. And his idea for bilateral relations with North Korea, even though most of the other nations involved with the multilateral talks have their own bilateral negations, is dumb. Even though China has encouraged us to have them, it’s still dumb. I know that Iran and North Korea are evil. That’s why I put them in my “Axis of Evil,” to remind myself. Then I ignored them.
GIBSON: Now we’ve got a question, on, surprise, the military, from MIDWESTERN MAN #3. Sir?
MIDWESTERN MAN #3: With all the military operations we’re involved with, how are you planning to maintain the level without instituting the draft?
BUSH: Well, the Internets (sic) tell me that people are concerned about this, but don’t worry. The all-volunteer Army is really the most effective Army, especially when you pay them and give them housing and stuff, we’ve discovered. We don’t need mass armies any more like we did during the Cold War and we were afraid that Soviet troops were going to come crashing through the Fulda Gap. Our shiny new-ish equipment in places like Korea and Europe is better than massive troop deployments. That way we can send troops to places like Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and other places where the beer isn’t as good as it is in Germany. And apparently our troop presence in South Korea isn’t scaring the North Koreans into not producing nukes, so we might as well pack up from there, too. So we’re bringing them all home, in the sense that their families will live in the US and the troops will live in Iraq. Doesn’t that sound better for everyone? But there won’t be a draft.
KERRY: I don’t support a draft, either. Our forces right now are tremendously overextended. The active duty’s been going from hot spot to hot spot, and our Guard and Reserve units are practically active duty themselves with the time they’ve been spending in Afghanistan and Iraq. With stop-loss policies that are currently in place, people can’t get out even if they want to, and that’s like a back-door draft. And I wouldn’t exactly jump to the “well paid” part of why it’s wonderful to be in the military-they could use a pay increase. And when they are deployed it hurts our middle class. It hurts our communities-many of the Guard and Reservists are the first responders in their home communities. I’m going to add another 40,000 active duty to our military, and make sure they’re not overextended because forming alliances means that it doesn’t have to be our men and women serving everywhere all the time. Other nations can take a turn, too.
GIBSON: Go ahead, Mr. President. Talk about the back-door draft of Reservists.
BUSH: Yeah, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to jump around and demand that he tell Tony Blair that we’re really going it alone, although the British only have 8,000 troops in Iraq. Tell Italy we’re going alone. Tell Poland. Or don’t tell Poland-they’re leaving soon. Shoot. We’ve got 30 countries with us, asshole.
KERRY: If Missouri were a country, it’d have the 3rd largest number of forces on the ground in Iraq, behind the US and the UK. Ninety percent of the casualties are Americans, 90 percent of the cost of it is coming from the US taxpayers. Grand coalition, my ass.
GIBSON: The next question comes from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #4
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #4: Why do you think there haven’t been any other attacks on American soil since 9/11?
KERRY: BUSH and his folks tell us that it’s not a matter of if, but when, and the pattern of al Qaeda supports that-it was five to seven years between the first bombing of the World Trade Center and the second. These folks plot, plan, and wait. And to know what they’re plotting, you need to have the intel. And I think I’m in a better position to get intelligence because you need cooperation with the rest of the world to get the intelligence that the rest of the world has. Right now, we’re not getting the greatest cooperation. And I’d put some serious money into homeland security. Everything you bring onto an airplane is screened, but the cargo isn’t. That’s scary. BUSH chose a tax cut over better security, which makes him heartless and cruel.
BUSH: We’ve tripled the budget from $10 billion to $30 billion, so shut up. And he voted in 1993 to cut the intelligence budget, so double shut up. We have to be right every single time; they only have to get lucky once. This is why it’s essential that the Patriot Act, which lets us short cut some of those pesky Constitutional guarantees, is so important for intelligence gathering purposes. My opponent is a bonehead. If he fails in Iraq, it’ll be a haven for terrorists because it’s totally not already. I don’t see how you can lead in Iraq if you thought it was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time. KERRY doesn’t get that. We have to chase down the terrorists and their safe havens. As long as it’s not Saudi Arabia.
GIBSON: We’ll extend on this one because I’m a little afraid of this whole “not if but when” concept. Expand for me, please.
KERRY: First of all, if you say “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time,” one more time, I’m going to have no other choice but to smack you in the face with my microphone. Just saying. But yeah, BUSH and his experts say that these folks are deadly, they are serious, and they don’t want anything except to kill. That’s why I’ll never stop hunting them down. And just throwing money at the problem doesn’t solve the problem. You have to make sure you’ve done everything you can to make America secure. BUSH chose a tax cut instead.
BUSH: I’ll talk about that tax cut later. But yeah, I’m worried, even though we have hugely talented people working overtime on this issue. And the long-term solution to this is to spread liberty, even though I’ve totally done nothing to increase the public diplomacy budget of the State Department that is devoted to that idea. Moving on.
GIBSON: Let’s switch to a health care question from MIDWESTERN MAN #4.
MIDWESTERN MAN #4: Why did you block the re-importation of prescription drugs from Canada, which knocks 40 to 60 percent off of what I’m paying on my meds?
BUSH: I haven’t done it yet, but I want to make sure those wily Canadians aren’t trying to kill you all. Making sure they haven’t gotten the med from a third world, like Venus or Neptune. Another way is to make sure generic brands of the meds make it onto the market, and to sign up seniors for their Medicare discount cards. Excuse me while I do a little dance on the excessive grooviness of the new Medicare law. It’s totally modernized the system, in the sense of “kicked it into the 1970s.”
KERRY: I’m so calling you on your bullshit. If he thought re-importation from Canada was a good idea, why’d he block the bill that the Senate had passed to implement the process? We had safety checks in place and everything, and these drugs aren’t coming from Burundi-they are coming from the US, in US bottles, and are just being sold in Canada. And he totally fucked up Medicare, too. He made it illegal for Medicare to buy drugs in bulk like the VA does-which would have saved $139 billion. He sides with the power companies, the oil companies, and the drug companies. He’s an evil, evil bastard and must be stopped.
BUSH: Bite me. If the meds prove to be safe, bring ‘em on in. And Clinton wouldn’t do it either, so shut up. You’ve been in the Senate 20 years and haven’t done diddly-shit to fix the Medicare problem.
KERRY: I so did. 1997, baby. We fixed Medicare, and we balanced the budget, too, something you haven’t done, oh, ever. We paid down the debt, created 23 million jobs, and then we threw a huge fucking party and didn’t invite you to it. 1997 was a fantastic year. You’ve made the biggest deficits in the history of the United States. Not only that, but if you added more debt to the US debt in four years than the combined effort of every president from George Washington to Ronald Reagan. Man, you suck.
GIBSON: Next question, please. MIDWESTERN WOMAN #5, it’s all you.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #5: Yeah, you talk about the rising cost of health care but chose a man who made millions suing medical professionals as your VP. What’s the deal with that?
KERRY: Because he wrote the Patients’ Bill of Rights, which totally rocks. And there does need to be some tort reform, it’s true, and we need to do something to help out the OB/GYNs and the brain surgeons and such. But it’s less than 1 percent of the total cost of health care. Everyone’s premiums have gone up-they’ve gone up 64 percent in Missouri. 5 million people have lost health insurance under BUSH. I’m going to give you health care-read all about on my spiffy-cool web page. We’re going to insure children, let you buy into the federal health care system, and let you buy into Medicare early. We rule.
BUSH: ::makes gagging noises:: So, so, so wrong. Stupid wrong. He’s totally the most liberal guy in the Senate. And in a place with visionary, forward thinking senators like Don Nickles, Orrin Hatch, Rick Santorum, Trent Lott and Zell Miller? Let me tell you friends, it takes a lot to look like a liberal in that room. He’d pay for this idea by taking all of your money. Don’t be chumps. And it’d be a health care system run by the federal government, which is a deeply bad idea. Look how badly they’ve screwed up the war in Iraq. Wait, I don’t mean that. Anyway, totally bad idea.
GIBSON: Let’s have some follow-up on this question.
KERRY: You bet. Yeah, we should probably look at capping some of the punitive damages in lawsuits, but really all BUSH is trying to do right now is scare people. And honestly, what the fuck’s a “compassionate conservative”? You’ve cut a half million kids from school lunch programs; you’ve cut 365,000 from health care and run up the big deficit in American history. You’re totally batting 0 for 2 here, boy. You don’t have a plan. I have a plan. It’s in binders and has charts and everything, which I didn’t bring because really, Ross Perot references = bad.
BUSH: Yeah, now you want a cap? They were voting on a bill in the Senate on that recently-maybe you should have voted. I won’t mention that I’ve only been Washington for 50 something days since the beginning of the year, but whatever. It won’t pass because of the trial lawyers, like, oh, the one that’s your vice presidential candidate.
GIBSON. Next question, from MIDWESTERN MAN #5.
MIDWESTERN MAN #5: You’ve had a Republican majority in the House and the Senate for pretty much your entire term, and you haven’t vetoed a single spending bill. Excluding the $120 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ve spent $700 billion more than you’ve collected in revenue. Why is your excessive overspending better than what KERRY proposes?
BUSH: Shit. I really wished you hadn’t asked that question.
KERRY: ::does the Cabbage Patch::
BUSH: Well, we had a recession when the 1990s bubble burst and then we went to war and spent money on bullets and soldier’s salaries and um, $30 billion for homeland security. Oh, and that enormous tax cut that gave you, like $436 back. It seemed like a good idea at the time because I swear somewhere I read that tax cuts during a war make more jobs or something. Too bad the current jobless rate doesn’t seem to bear that out, but anyway. But non-military discretionary funding, which means, you know, schools, veterans’ health care, agricultural subsidies, environmental regulation money, cops and fire department money, violence against women funding, and everything else that the government is supposed to take care of year to year have gone from 15 percent growth to only 1 percent. And now you don’t have to wonder why only the military has money any more.
KERRY: Let me start by saying my health care plan wasn’t a government takeover because we all know that is a bad idea. You keep the choices-you choose your doctor, you choose your plan, you choose whether or not you even want to be a part of it. Now let’s talk turkey. When BUSH came to office, he has a $5.6 trillion surplus. With a “TR”-that’s a lot of money. Now we’re at a $2.6 trillion deficit, with another TR. That’s a huge switch. He’s the first president in 72 years to lose jobs while in office. This is also the first war in history where we’ve had a tax cut because that makes no kind of sense. One percent of Americans got $89 billion in tax cuts last year-more than the combined total of everyone who made $100,000 or less. I’ll cut taxes for everyone making under $200,000. The rich can afford to pay a little more.
GIBSON: That’s great, really, both of you. But how are you going to cut the deficit in half, like you’ve both promised to do?
BUSH: We’ll make sure Congress, which is run by my party, doesn’t overspend on stuff. Yeah, that’ll do it. But remember, it’s totally not my fault-the economy tanked because of the Evil Clinton Administration. I can’t really prove that, though.
KERRY: Yeah, that second tax cut? The one that was supposed to make 5.6 million jobs? Made negative 1.6 million jobs. You suck at math, dude. And the rest of that tax cut went to ridiculously wealthy people. He wanted to give a $254 million refund to fucking Enron with government money. He’s insane.
GIBSON: Next question, from MIDWESTERN MAN #6.
MIDWESTERN MAN #6: KERRY, look in the camera and promise that you won’t sign legislation to increase the tax burden on folks making less than $200,000 a year.
KERRY: Sure thing. And I’ll even mention my tax cuts again: I’ll raise the child-care tax credit by $1,000. I’ll have a $4,000 tax credit for college tuition for parents. And I have a way of paying for it. I’ve even cut some of my spiffy ideas because BUSH keeps spending money. We’ll go back to the good life in the 1990s, but without the intern scandals.
BUSH: Yeah, but you suck. You’ve voted to break the spending cap 200 times and your numbers don’t add up. He’s totally lying to you, and he wants to spent $2.2 trillion and has only taxed the rich for $600 or $800 billion. We’ve come up with new jobs over the last 13 months that should make up for the fact that we’d have an overall loss of jobs. And I’m also going to have an energy plan, although I don’t know exactly what that has to do with lowering the tax burden, so whatever.
GIBSON: My brain hurts. Go through those numbers again for me?
KERRY: Sure thing. First of all, we don’t want to spend $2.2 trillion. And he’s forgetting to mention the billions we’ll stop going out of the country when we close the loopholes that corporations are currently exploiting. And I was there in 1985 when the Democrats first started making noise to balance the budget, and then voted to balance the budget in 1993 and 1997. So phooey on him.
BUSH: Yeah, but counting procedural motions and votes, he’s voted to raise your taxes 98 times. And he’s also liberal, liberal, liberal.
GIBSON. Next question, from MIDWESTERN MAN #7.
MIDWESTERN MAN #7: Now without shooting water out your nose, Mr. President, I want you to tell me how you think you rate as an environmentalist. What have you done to make our air and water safer?
BUSH: Well, I’ve chopped down a lot of trees, if that’s what you mean. That’s made our forests safer from fire damage. I’ve also asked someone to look into hydrogen cars, although everyone gave me kind of strange glances and then changed the subject. But I think I’m a good steward of the land.
KERRY: ::chokes, falls off stool::
GIBSON: ::bangs him on the back::
BUSH: Yeah. We’ve got cleaner air and more restored land since I’ve been president.
KERRY: That is the biggest load of horseshit I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. Jesus. “BUSH” and “environmentalist” go together about as well as “bin Laden” and “mentally stable.” When it comes to the environment, this Administration has one of the worst records, you know, ever. Clear Skies is one of those Orwellian names you slap on something to make it sound great. You know, like “No Child Left Behind,” or “Patriot Act.” We’re going backwards in terms of environmental standards-their air quality guy at EPA resigned in disgust for what they were doing. They’ve gone backwards on definitions of wetlands; decided that global warming isn’t real. When I’m president, I’m going to believe in science.
BUSH: I’m so an environmentalist. Just like Smokey the Bear, man. And the Kyoto treaty was stupid. And the air is totally cleaner than it used to be. Maybe this is because all the manufacturing jobs are leaving the country and the plants are closing down?
KERRY: Okay, I admit that Kyoto was flawed. But you didn’t even try to make it better-you took 160 countries and ten years of work and just said no. You are an asshole.
GIBSON: Time for a question about jobs from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #6.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #6: How can the US continue to be competitive in manufacturing jobs considering we all expect to, you know, make a salary we can live on?
KERRY: Well, the tax benefit that companies currently enjoy if they pick up and leave the country certainly isn’t helping anything. So we’ll close that loophole, and add a tax benefit if they create manufacturing jobs. This also folds into the whole “health care is ridiculously expensive, yo” problem that I talked about earlier. Which I have a plan for, and that one, sitting over there fuming, doesn’t. No plan, nope. And I pay for it by raising taxes on richest people: him, me, and Charlie Gibson. Because you, Middle American Who Hasn’t Made Their Mind Up Yet for the Love of God Vote For Me, deserve it. You deserve health care, and education that works, and clean air, and chocolate, and an aggravation-free commute to work without the asshole who cuts you off and then sits there for thirty minutes in front of you with his turn signal blinking. Anyway, by improving our educational system, we’ll graduate kids who are interests in technology and science that extends beyond their Xboxes. We’re going to put our colleges and universities to work for us. We’re going to stop our dependence on Middle East oil, too, which doesn’t have much to do with anything, but I haven’t mentioned it yet.
BUSH: Yeah, well back to health care for a second. KERRY still hates medical liability regulations. And we should allow small businesses to pool together on health care plans so they can buy insurance at the same rates the big businesses do. This is different from saying, “OK, let me incent you to go on the government." And his plan totally won’t work. And the best way to keep jobs in the US is to have a better energy plan. I don’t know why these are connected, but they are so just listen, okay? I told Congress to come up with a plan that encourages conversation and encourages the use of biodiesels and things. And the Senate totally hates my plan and it’s really all his fault, because he and his running mate are totally Senators and should be voting for my brilliant plan. I’d loosen up regulations here, and increase legal reform. Oh, and his plan would totally tax small business owners, too, you know.
GIBSON: Let’s keep talking about this. How are you going to stop all out-sourcing-the tax incentives aren’t going to do it.
KERRY: I didn’t say I could stop it all-that would be something incredibly stupid to claim. I just want to create a level playing field. But back to what BUSH just said. Even the Wall Street Journal said that 96 percent of small businesses wouldn’t be affected by plan. He only thought of it because he uses that loophole to get $84 from the timber company he owns, which makes him a small business. It makes Dick Cheney a small business. A small business of evil, but that’s neither here nor there.
BUSH: I own a timber company? Huh. Need some wood?
GIBSON: Ewww. Never say that to me again.
KERRY: I second that.
BUSH: I’ve met some small business guys. Seventy percent of all the new jobs in this country are created by small businesses. Taxes are just going to go up. That’s all I wanted to say.
GIBSON: Now that I’m back from poking my eye out with a spork for the whole “need some wood?” comment, I think we’re ready for another question from MIDWESTERN MAN #8.
MIDWESTERN MAN #8: Okay, the Patriot Act takes away some of my rights, especially regarding the Fourth Amendment. Patriot II would take more. Justification for that, please?
BUSH: No it doesn’t, unless you’re a terrorist. This law gives the FBI the ability to talk to each other. They still don’t, but now they don’t have a legislative excuse. But no, the Patriot Act doesn’t really affect you all that much. Really. Honestly. ::nervous smile::
KERRY: Whatever, dude. The Republican Party chair said that this bill needs to be changed and fixed. The chair of the House Judiciary Committee also said it’ll be over his dead body that another bill likes this gets passed before it is thoroughly checked. John Ashcroft has twice applied the law in ways that are completely inappropriate, and that’s coming from the IG of his own department. People in this country have been put in jail for months without being allowed to contact a lawyer. Sneak-and-peek searches are allowed. Infiltrations of churches and political meetings are allowed without anyone needing to show that there’s any kind of potential criminal activity. I voted it for it. 99 US Senators voted for it. And there were some parts, like the coordination that was supposed to happen between the FBI and the CIA, that were absolutely necessary. But some of the provisions were bullshit and need to be changed.
GIBSON: And now it’s time for a total awkward social issue discussion. MIDWESTERN WOMAN #7? You’re up.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #7: Talk to me about embryonic stem cell research, please.
KERRY: Shit. Well, Nancy Reagan and Michael J. Fox think that embryonic stem cell research would be a good idea. So does Superman-I mean, Chris Reeve. Ethically guided embryonic research could be done. There are 100,000 to 200,000 frozen embryos that are slated to be destroyed in fertility clinics. Let’s see if we can use these to cure Parkinson’s disease, or diabetes, or Alzheimer’s or spinal cord injuries. I think that is another way of respecting life.
BUSH: And I think you’re an evil baby killer. I think that the 20 lines that are already active should be enough for scientists to figure out if this is going to work, and I think that we should really be pursuing adult stem cell research.
KERRY: The problem with the stem cells he’s allowing to be used as research are all contaminated with mice cells and that makes them pretty much useless to scientists at this point. I think that we should look into using other embryos, embryos that have already been slated to be destroyed anyway, to try to make some scientific progress.
BUSH: And I think that those cells are life. The original lines had been destroyed before I had anything to do with it, so I didn’t have to make a moral call on it. Let’s keep using those.
GIBSON: Another question from MIDWESTERN MAN #9.
MIDWESTERN MAN #9: If you had to fill a Supreme Court justice position, just who would that right-wing crazy be?
BUSH: Yeah, I’m not telling you that. But they would have to allow the Pledge of Allegiance to be said in schools, even with the “under God” part in it. And then I’ll mangle the interpretation of the Dred Scott case in a way that’s got my high school history teacher writhing in pain on the ground. But they’d be strict constuctionalists. Yeah. We’ll stick with that as an answer. Did that help you any?
KERRY: Let’s put it this way: his favorite justices on the Court right now are Thomas and Scalia. If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will. I think the mark of a good justice is to not be able to discover, when you read their decision, whether they are liberal or conservative, male or female, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim or whatever. They should just deliver a good, fair decision. These kind of judges don’t live on this planet, but, you know, I’m hopeful.
GIBSON: Thank God, we’re down to the last two questions. First one to you, KERRY, from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #8.
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #8: Let’s talk about abortion. What would you say to someone who thinks abortion is murder and doesn’t want government money funding abortions?
KERRY: Oh, goody. I would tell them that I’m Catholic, raised Catholic and that my faith plays a part in who I am today. And that I believe that I can’t take something that’s an article of faith for me and legislate it for everyone. I can counsel people, talk to them about responsibility and making choices. But I have to respect other people’s views on this. We need to let people be educated about it, to know what their options are, and not to deny a poor person the option they are Constitutionally entitled to if they can’t afford it any other way. So I’d also lift the global gag rule-teaching people about family planning prevents AIDS, and stops unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children.
BUSH: Yeah, I don’t understand what he said at all. It’s got nuance and something about not legislating your beliefs onto everyone else, and I’ve never heard of such a concept. I don’t think the government should pay for abortions at all. I signed the ban partial-birth abortions, although the language is nebulous enough that it could apply to second trimester abortions as well. I think parents should be notified if a girl is thinking about having an abortion-he disagrees. I signed the Unborn Victims of Violence bill that would put a murderer up for two murders if by killing a mother he kills an unborn baby as well. In a certain light, this could be applied to doctors, too, and that’ll be brought before the Supreme Court, but that’s for another time. I think we should have good adoption laws, too, although I haven’t spent a lot of money dealing with that issue.
KERRY: It’s so not that simple. The partial-birth bill didn’t have any kind of exception for the life or health of the mother and that makes it a bad bill. And I’m against parental notifications if it requires a 16-year-old girl who was raped by her father to get his damned permission. The bill didn’t include a judicial intervention clause-that makes it a bad bill. It’s so not as black and white as the world BUSH would like to live in makes it.
BUSH: Well, it’s easy when they say are you for partial-birth abortions or not, even though it’s totally not the name of a medical procedure of any kind. He voted against it: therefore, baby killing monster.
GIBSON: Last question from MIDWESTERN WOMAN #9. Shit, where’d she go?
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #9: I’m over here.
GIBSON: Man. ::smacks head on desk and cries::
MIDWESTERN WOMAN #9: Name three mistakes you’ve made, BUSH, in the last four years. They don’t have to be in alphabetical order or anything.
BUSH: I think I’ll tap dance around this question tonight. There were some errors tactically that military strategists will probably look back and wonder what kind of crack we were smoking, but big things? I can’t think of any. Afghanistan, good. Iraq, good. Tax cut, good. There were some appointments I regret making, but I won’t name them on national TV.
CHRISTIE TODD WHITMAN (at home): Fuck you, asshole.
JOHN ASHCROFT (at home): ::polishes resumes, sings himself a sad, sad song::
BUSH: But yeah, I’m pretty much perfect. How are you?
KERRY: I’ve got a list. It’s alphabetized, too. May I? Let’s start with Half-assed War in Iraq. No coalition, no clear plan, no nothing. We didn’t guard our own ammo dumps. We didn’t armor the Humvees we sent to a war zone. We don’t have enough body armor for the troops currently serving there. You fucked up sending us to war, dude, and saying that Saddam maybe could’ve attacked us ten years from now as justification for the mess we’re in now is just plain wrong.
BUSH: Shut up, Mr. “I Voted for it before I Voted Against it” Man. Saddam was a badass and needed to go.
KERRY: I made a mistake talking about a vote. You made a mistake sending people to war. You’re still the bigger jerk.
GIBSON: Closing statement time. KERRY, you up?
KERRY: Unless you want to go, BUSH.
BUSH: Whatever.
KERRY: Fine, I’ll go. Thank you all for your great questions tonight. As you can see, we have some differences on the issues. I would like you to notice that I didn’t once beat him over the head with my stool, although at points I was sorely tempted. I won’t let some other country dictate policy to us, but I believe that Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan were right-we’re stronger when we’re working through alliances. I have plans to deal with Iraq, plans to deal with terrorism. New start, fresh credibility-vote for me, please, please, please. Also, I’ll fix health care, protect the environment, actually fund No Child Left Behind, and guarantee each of you a decent cup of coffee in the morning. Whatever you want. Vote for me, please?
BUSH: Yeah, this has totally been a treat. Something I want to repeat all the time, except, you know, not. We’ve added 1.9 million jobs in the last 13 months, increased farm incomes and homeownership. Life is pretty good. And to keep it that way, vote for me and my plan of low taxes, no enlargement in the federal government, regulations down, a health care policy that hasn’t actually been explained, and an energy policy that makes us less dependent on foreign oil. Yeah, and we’re still at war, so switching leaders would be bad. We’ll continue looking for al Qaeda and promoting freedom. Afghanistan is voting tomorrow, Iraq will vote soon. Elections + free society=OTP! Vote for me, me, me.
Again, if you're looking for an actual transcript, complete with fact-checking, head to The Washington Post.
*collapses in bed*