According to polls, most Americans – including Republicans – agree that President Bush was trounced in the first debate. Yet many Republican spinmeisters maintain that it doesn’t matter and might actually be a good thing. People who talk in complete sentences, these eloquent pundits suggest, are likely to be slick, untrustworthy liberal elites. Bush may be simple, but he’s simple in a good way.

The evidence suggests, however, that Bush’s incoherence reflects more than just a lack of surface polish. When the president fails to find the right words, it’s because his ideas and policies, and not merely his words, fail to form a coherent whole.

Jim Austin, Gray