The Ruckus in the Cactus

I must say, showing up as a “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot” in the first two or three rounds cost Kid Kerry some points, although based on scoring by the fifth and sixth round, your talking dog would have ultimately awarded a split decision to Kid Kerry over No Gentleman George in last night’s presidential debate in Tempe, AZ. Frankly, I resent having to listen to Kerry at all (thank you Iowa), but making me hear his stump speech bullshit in response to an easy question that presented big-time scoring opportunities made me want to puke. Worse, Bush came right back with the truest and fairest counterpunch-criticism of Kerry of all: you bitch a lot about what I do… without saying what you’d do differently or better. Bush scored points, IMHO, on a bogus question about flu vaccine, that really shouldn’t have been asked, with a spirited, though inaccurate attack on trial lawyers. I scored Kerry’s counter-punches on “health care in general” as having not connected, awarding the round to Bush.
However, proving his reputation of being a better fighter coming from behind, and especially a late round “closer”, Kerry actually picked up steam and came on strong, and won by “t.k.o.”– that’s right, I disqualified Bush when he went to the below-the-belt “global test” horseshit. There are some things I will not tolerate. I’m perfectly happy to hear Bush deny what he once clearly said about Osama (kind of like Cheney’s denial of meeting Edwards), and I’m even happy to hear him TRY to torture Kerry’s voting record. Look: its politics– go ahead and lie. Doesn’t bother me, actually. But don’t patronize me. The “global test” has pretty much been beaten to death (Kerry more or less made clear that he SAYS he won’t give Paris and Berlin a veto over our defense, yada yada yada), and Bush was well aware it was an illegal punch– he just couldn’t help himself. I’m sorry– flip flopper, waffler… be my guest. But not the global test. Especially with the little fingers putting it in quotes. (Unless you WANT a d.q., of course.)
Although this (fight-ending) incident happened in round 7 or 8 IIRC, Guest Referee Bob Schieffer of CBS nonetheless let the viewers see what they showed up for, and the fight went on anyway (albeit in pretend form) with Kid Kerry just pummeling the crap out of the titleholder in the late rounds. It wasn’t pretty– not that watching Bush ever is.
Although until the t.k.o., I had it scored pretty evenly– indeed Bush was ahead on my card going into round three, other viewers, interestingly, scored it much more decisively for Kerry.
If so, that means Kid Kerry won all three of his head to head bouts– the Pummelling in the Palms (in Miami), the Kablooey in St. Louie, and now the Ruckus in the Cactus (in Phoenix) with the reigning titleholder, going into the actual Title Match in 19 days, having been outpunched thrice (same number as Kerry’s purple hearts). Since I also scored the Swing State Swingin’ Match in Cleveland between Pretty Boy Edwards and Dirty Dick Cheney to be a decisive, solid 3-0 decision for the challenger, the titleholders should not consider themselves in a strong position going into Electoralmania 2004 on 2 November.
Fortunately for them, there won’t be any judges available to declare t.k.o.’s for the expected cheatin’ by George and Dick (except for the bought and paid for five that wear black robes and sit on Capitol Hill). Which means that the Kid Kerry and Pretty Boy Edwards’ tag team act is probably going to have to win by a pure (preferably painful and bloody) knock-out.
A tall order– but Kid Kerry is finally pouring it on now. And George and Dick look like they are coming in sluggish and overweight against the lean and mean challengers. What an exciting 19 days to go, folks (and who knows HOW much longer after that with this year’s coming Florida “recount”!)

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