IMO, one of the problems with the Bush performance is Kerry’s inherent and seemingly endless talent for sophistry.

Here are some definitions to check out:

Definition: [n] a deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone.

Further, from Webster’s 1913 dictionary:

\Soph”ist*ry\, n. [OE. sophistrie, OF. sophisterie.]

1. The art or process of reasoning; logic. [Obs.]

2. The practice of a sophist; fallacious reasoning; reasoning sound in appearance only.

The juggle of sophistry consists, for the most part,in using a word in one sense in the premise, and in another sense in the conclusion. –Coleridge.

Kerry made abundant use of that time-honored debating technique throughout the first debate.

This is relatively easy to catch after a lot of training. I have 40 years experience as a trial lawyer, and in a trial can usually catch most of my opponent’s resort to such “cheap tricks”. But not always.

Kerry is a particularly artful practitioner of this technique. Almost the equal of Clinton, I might point out. It has been on display since his days at Yale, and as the “star witness” before the Fulbright Committee in 1971.

Unfortunately, W is not at all skilled in the art form of sophistry. He knows there are fallacies in Kerry’s arguments, but he is not particularly skillful in articulating and opposing them on the spot. That clearly is not his gift. Frustration then sets in. Someone needs to give him some techniques to recognize and call BS on Kerry’s sallies into never never land. The problem is the Bush is not a liar, and sometimes it “takes one to know one”.

I read the comments on this post daily because I am particularly impressed with the quality of thinking and writing displayed here. What I sense today is frustration that W did not pound Kerry over the head every time he came up with his sophist BS.

But we can help him out by ‘splaining’ to our friends and those we influence that despite all appearances, Kerry’s skill set is primarily limited to the fine art of the windbag who talks a good game but never makes a tough decision.

That’s what frustrates those of us who spent our year in Vietnam, while he came back after 4 months and badmouthed our sense of duty to a mission that could have been saved.

He was in a sense like Lt. Keefer in the Caine Mutiny. Undermining Captain Queeg and urging others to do so when he recognized that Queeg had serious psychological problems, but failing to use his influence to help his shipmates help Queeg to save the ship.

He should suffer the same fate as Keefer in the last scene of that play. Rejection.

W needs our help to assure that result.