A tedious night, with a bit of humor
THERE CAN'T be much doubt about who turned in the best performance in last night's New Hampshire debate. Only one man on that stage was consistently calm and thoughtful, well-spoken and well-prepared. He didn't wilt under pressure, he was forceful without being discourteous -- if anyone appeared ready for the responsibilities of the White House, it was he. Too bad Brit Hume isn't running for president.
And too bad Wesley Clark is.
Clark was awful -- whiny and defensive and acting nothing at all like a former four-star general. But at one juncture, he was worse than awful -- he was positively appalling.
Refusing to repudiate Michael Moore's slanderous description of George W. Bush as a "deserter" was a colossal political blunder.
I think it will haunt the rest of his campaign.
John Kerry, by contrast, performed exactly as he needed to. There was nothing in his manner or in any of his answers to scare off the voters who have been moving his way. He was grave, assertive, articulate, and, by and large, unflustered. If I were a Kerry supporter, I would be very, very pleased.
But I'm not a Kerry supporter. I disagree with his diehard liberal politics, but what I find really distasteful is his perpetual equivocation and calculation -- his refusal to be forthright even about his own record.
There has been plenty of comment about Kerry's attempt to have it every way on the war, for example, and it was on display again last night.
Once more he was withering in his denunciation of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq; once more he repeated his line about how the United States should never go to war because it wants to, but only because it has to.
Never once did he acknowledge candidly that he himself voted for that war -- and when asked about it and forced to give an answer, he pretended he had voted merely to "threaten" Iraq. That isn't the kind of dissembling that loses a debate. It may turn out to be the kind that loses a campaign.
On the whole it was a tedious evening -- too many candidates, too many panelists, too many long-winded answers. Fortunately, there were moments of comic relief.
It was worth the price of admission just to see that blowhard Al Sharpton try to answer a question about the Federal Reserve. It was funny to discover that John Edwards doesn't appear to have the slightest idea what the Defense of Marriage Act is all about. And it was hilarious to watch Clark try to wriggle out of Brit Hume's devastating query about his political loyalties: After reciting a litany of examples of Clark's pro-Republican record, Hume asked, "Can you tell us when you first noticed you were a Democrat?"
Hume really was terrific last night. Maybe it's not too late to get him on the ballot.
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com. 