corrente

I'm having a little cognitive dissidence on this one:

President Bush may skip one of the three debates that have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates and accepted by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Republican officials said yesterday.

The officials said Bush's negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in the crucial state of Missouri.

The audience for the second debate, to be at Washington University in St. Louis, was to be picked by the Gallup Organization. The commission said participants should be undecided voters from the St. Louis area.

A presidential adviser said campaign officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans.
(via WaPo)

Weird. I mean, it's weird that Bush is heroic enough to defend the country against evil, but he isn't heroic enough to take questions from someone he's afraidconcerned might be a partisan. WTF? I mean, how could there be any questions that The Chosen One could be unprepared to answer?

Even weirder is the fact that Bush has the solution to people posing as partisans—after all, if Bush has people at his own rallies sign loyalty oaths (back) that they're going to vote for Him (not that voting for Him is really necessary, you understand), why not just have people at the debate sign a loyalty oath that they're still undecided?

And anyhow, if a partisan somehow sneaks into the debate and does something like wear a Kerry button or T-Shirt or act in any way that is not suitably worshipfu, Bush can just have them arrested! (back) Or stomp them (back)

So what's the deal here?