Kerry is relaxed and sure of himself. Bush is acting wierd, he keeps grimacing and looking around in the air. Kerry is getting good digs in. He's not being insulting but he's taking all available shots.

How do you think they acted?

Update: Bush is petulant. He's impatient. He interrupted once when he saw time was up and another time said "let me finish" when no one had interrupted him. Bush's mouth is dry, he's licking his lips. He's also too fidgety.

One Hour Update: Kerry has been confident, strong, articulate, and on point the entire time.

Update: Bush was finally honest and articulate on an issue: His praise for John Kerry's character. He avoided personal slams.

8:20. Bush is distracted, his train of thought isn't there. He's tripping over too many words and it seems like he's groping not just for words, but for whole thoughts. Too many pauses.

Closing: Bush has to be reading from a teleprompter for his closing. He's fluent for the first time all night. And his facial expressions are practiced and nuanced to fit the cadence of his speech. What a difference. He can't do it without a script.

Bush's first two misstatements:

75% of known Al Qaida leaders have been apprehended.

America is safer with Saddam in a prison cell.

1. Note the use of the qualifier "known"
2. Iraqis may be are safer, not Americans [edited after reading comments]

Next:

Bump and Update: Let's all blog live during the debate and after. Use the comments to this thread to expose Bush's lies and debunk the Republican spin from the debate. Don't wait for me, just jump on it.

Don't forget to visit Rapid Reblogger. Also, a wiki has been set up at whoarethey.org.

Bump and Update: You can watch the debate live on the internet on C-span, here is the direct link. After the debate, the transcript will be available here.

****************
Original Post

Here's an open thread to discuss tonight's debate. It's the news of the day, so barring something big, TalkLeft will stick with this topic until tomorrow.

The Republicans are geared up for rapid response on the internet. Dems need to be as well.

Update: ..first, I'd like to give a big shout-out to my new buddy Tyler who emailed me a week ago asking if I could use some photos on Talkleft for the Miami Debate. I said yes, and he was as good as word, starting out each day looking for behind the scenes goings on. When he'd find them he would email me the picutures and a little story. Just a delight to work with. He got us more pictures pictures and comments after the debate. Thanks, Tyler! They follow his next description:

First, here's Tyler

Wow....what a day. It's 1:30 AM and I just got back from all the festivities. Campus was absolutey crazy all day today. I attended Hardball on MSNBC up to the time of the debate. If you caught any of it, I was standing in the crowd behind Chris Mathews when they had the camera on him and I was wearing my fraternity letters (Sigma Phi Epsilon) and was holding the sign that said "got WMD?". After the debate there was a concert with Jill Scott and Vanessa Carlton, who are both amazingly talented people.

After the concert it was back to the MSNBC stage for post-debate wrap-up and analysis. Let me just say that Kerry really stuck it to Bush tonight. Bush didn't look like he was enjoying himself and kept repeating everything. Kerry was on point and was very poised the entire debate. Bush came out strong but just seemed to lose it after about the first half hour, after that it was all Kerry.

All in all, it was an event I'll never forget; something I can tell my children about one day. How many people will be able to say that they hosted a presidential debate on their college campus? Well, it's about time for me to pass out now. Talk to you tomorrow, and I'll add to the comments tomorrow morning.

Tyler's Thursday Night Pictures are here.

Update: 3pm ET:
Thursday morning pictures here.
Thursday afternoon pictures here.
Thursday late afternoon pictures here
[Click on each photo for larger version.]

Law Prof Michael Froomkin of Discourse.Net says a vote for Bush is a vote for Torture.

For more, visit Human Rights First (formerly Lawyers Committee for Human Rights). From their press release (received by email):

"SNEAK PROVISIONS" OF HOUSE 9/11 BILL WOULD PERMIT TORTURE
The House and Senate continued work this week on legislation to enact many of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. While the Senate bill has focused on increasing cooperation among the nation's 15 intelligence agencies, the House bill includes provisions unrelated - or directly contrary - to the Commission's recommendations. Among the most disturbing provisions is one to evade U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture and permit the United States to "render" individuals to countries known to practice torture. The House bill also reintroduces provisions of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, legislation that was tabled after Human Rights First and other groups denounced it as a threat to civil liberties with no benefits for national security.

In more legal terms,

Upstaging the debate entirely for us is news that 35 children were killed in Bagdad today.

Grief-stricken mothers wailed over their children's bloodied corpses, as relatives collected body parts from the street for burial and a boy picked up the damaged bicycle of his dead brother.

The wounded were rushed to Yarmouk Hospital, where angry relatives screamed for attention from the overwhelmed doctors, many of whom wore uniforms covered in blood. One woman tore at her hair before pulling back the sheet covering her dead brother and kissing his body.

It happened while American soldiers were celebrating the inauguration of a new sewage plant. (I'm not making this up.)

Some of the children, who are near the end of a nationwide school vacation, said they were attracted to the neighborhood celebration by American soldiers handing out candy. "The Americans called us. They told us: 'Come here, come here,' asking us if we wanted sweets. We went beside them, then a car exploded," said 12-year-old Abdel Rahman Dawoud, lying naked in a hospital bed with shrapnel embedded all over his body.

Who's doing the killing?

Just a public interest alert if you're away from the news. Merck has pulled Vioxx off the market--a three year study showed it doubled the risk of heart attacks and increased the rate of strokes. The stock dropped 26% today. Celebrex, made by Pfizer, will likely see a surge.

84 million people have taken Vioxx since it launched in 1999. The increased risks were noticable in patients who had taken the drug for 18 months.

Go watch this now--from the Drug Policy Alliance, a new animated flash with great, haunting music The "War on Drugs" Hurts Democracy.

Then take action by contacting your Governor:

The "war on drugs," combined with felony disfranchisement laws, is crippling our democracy by locking 4.7 million people out of the voting booth. This includes hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders. The U.S. is the only democracy in the world that takes away its citizens' right to vote for life.

[Link via Drug War Rant]

Where's Big Brother? On his way to your town, says the ACLU in a new report.

The report argues that even as surveillance capacity grows like a “monster” in our midst, the legal “chains” needed to restrain that monster are being weakened. The report cites not only new technology but also erosions in protections against government spying, the increasing amount of tracking being carried out by the private sector, and the growing intersection between the two.

From government watch lists to secret wiretaps – Americans are unknowingly becoming targets of government surveillance,” said Dorothy Ehrlich, executive director of the ACLU of Northern California. “It is dangerous for a democracy that government power goes unchecked and for this reason it is imperative that our government be made accountable.”

Finally, a little backbone. Democrats have realized that the GOP is padding the 9/11 Intelligence bill with extraneous provisions.

House Republicans who want the Sept. 11 bill to include other anti-terrorism and immigration enforcement powers produced a 300-plus page package laden with bills they had introduced before the Sept. 11 report came out. By doing a large, comprehensive bill that would increase police powers and implement new anti-immigration measures such as denying immigrants certain court appeals and allowing more people to be arrested on accusations of supporting a terrorist group, House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., says they're responding to what the Sept. 11 commission wants: greater security for America.

All but one Democrat, Adam Schiff (D-CA) voted against the bill.

At the end of the day, we are left with a bill that not only does not implement all of the 9/11 commission's recommendations, but that includes numerous extraneous, unnecessary and controversial provisions," said Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the committee's top Democrat. The Senate won't accept those items when it comes time to negotiate a final bill, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. "This is their way of stopping the 9/11 commission's recommendations from being implemented."

Fine. Let them stop the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. Better that than enacting another turkey of a bill in the name of anti-terrorism.

The ACLU has all the disturbing details of the Republican proposed measure.

PayPal has redeemed itself. Bill Quick of the Daily Pundit objected to having his account limited due to mentioning a beheading video. He didn't remove it. He wrote an e-mail complaining and refused to follow their appeals process and insisted he had not violated their terms of use policy. He received an apology from PayPal today. And a phone call.

With respect to the same limitation being placed on TalkLeft's account, I went a more Machiavellian route. I removed the offending link, to ensure I would be reinstated right away, which I was, and then withdrew my funds. I left for another day the question of whether to continue to use Paypal.

I didn't receive a phone call, but I did receive a survey to complete about the experience and how PayPal could better handle these situations in the future. It included a space for as long a comment as I wanted to make. I made a long one, complaining about PayPal's limiting the account before asking the account owner for an explanation or defense. That's due process...notice of the charges and an opportunity to be heard--before any punitive action is taken. But, I have to admit, I was reinstated within 18 hours of their initial action, which is fairly responsive.

Also, I agree with Bill Quick:

People for the American Way (PFAW) have a new campaign, Four More Years or Forty More Years? It's talking points...and has an animated video section, Flash the Court. There's a contest going so if you think you can create a better flash on the subject, go ahead.

Voters need to understand how critical this election is to their future, and the future of their children: