J$P Instant Transcript! Dick Morris analyzes the first Presidential Debate.

From Hannity and Colmes, September 30 2004:

SEAN HANNITY [FOX NEWS]: Joining us now is the author of Rewriting History, former Clinton advisor Dick Morris. Dick good to see you, in London tonight. All right, let’s get to the bottom line. What did you think of the debate?

DICK MORRIS [FOX NEWS ANALYST]: Well, I think that Bush won on substance, I think Kerry did better on style. I think that, I mean, obviously Kerry’s positions on this subject are so contradictory and so mixed up that they obviously couldn’t hold up in the debate. I mean, of course you can’t have a Commander in Chief who tells his troops to fight the wrong war. Obviously, you need bunker-busting nuclear weapons. Where do you think the weapons of mass destruction are, in store windows? Obviously we need China in multilateral talks, how else are we going to get the North Koreans to play ball?

HANNITY: Right.

MORRIS: But given all of that, I thought that Bush was as unfocused, undisciplined, unenergetic, smirking, as I thought he was during the pre-primary debates of 2000. He could have ended John Kerry’s candidacy tonight. If he was as effective in the 88 minutes as he was in the last two, Kerry could be out of the race now.

HANNITY: I couldn’t disagree with you more. Dick, I never saw him more passionate, more articulate, more on message, and frankly, I understand your point about John Kerry. John Kerry is this Yale debater--

MORRIS: He looked Presidential, he looked like a Commander in Chief. He didn’t sound like one; his positions are nutty. But he came across very well.

HANNITY: Well, I didn’t see it that way. I understand his point on--well, his positions, Dick, are so incoherent at this particular point, and this will be brought to the fore in the next 24 and 48 hours, as people just see the flipping and flopping with this guy. But I understand he’s a Yale debater, but I thought the President came off as so passionate and so detailed and so interested and convincing.

MORRIS: There are times when he did. The last two minutes were good, when he related the casualties in Iraq he was very good. When he spoke of the need to win the war he was superb. But I would say that of the 45 minutes that Bush spoke, there were about 20 or 25 minutes when he wasn’t even there. I got the feeling he was distracted, he didn’t answer questions quickly, he kind of stumbled all over himself. And people say that’s Bush. But that wasn’t the Bush who slew Al Gore in three debates. That wasn’t the Bush who took care of McCain in the later debates. That was much more reminiscent of the Bush in the early Presidential debates when he was in the fourth quarter and coasting on a lead. I thought he was complacent tonight.

ALAN COLMES [FOX NEWS]: Hey Dick, it’s Alan. Good to have you back on the program. So how does the public see it? You say that Bush won on substance, Kerry won on style. A lot of people thought it would be the opposite. How does this poll? What’s going to happen when we see how the public reacts?

MORRIS: I would suspect that you’re going to see a tightening of the race. I think Kerry did himself some good tonight. But I think his positions are so terrible on this war and so obviously contradictory and nonsensical that there’s no way he could really gain. But what I’m worried about is that the second debate is going to be on domestic policy, which is Kerry’s turf. And if Bush turns in the same kind of performance he did tonight, he’s going to get killed. If I were Bush’s consultants, I would be beating him up tonight.

COLMES: I disagree with you on Kerry’s substance. I thought he laid out better than he ever did before why he voted the way he did, how he feels about Iraq. He even said I made a mistake in how I articulated it but I didn’t make a mistake in a war as the President did.

MORRIS: He was as convoluted as a pretzel. How are you going to create allies when you go in and say these are the coalition of the bribed and coerced? I’m in Britain tonight promoting this new film, Fahrenhype 9/11, to rebut Fahrenheit 9/11, because I want to tell the British people that this is not the bought and coerced. These are idealists, fighting an idealistic war for a good end. And I felt that Kerry’s positions were--how do you be the Commander in Chief and say I want you men to go out and fight and die in Iraq, which is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time? You can’t do it. Obviously Kerry is being caught between the left and the right of his political base, and he’s whipsawing and Sean’s right, he’s inconsistent. But boy, Bush didn’t come across like he should have.

HANNITY: All right, Dick. Good to see you. We’ve got to run, Dick. Good to see you; thank you.