J$P Instant Transcript! Ann Coulter, Susan Estrich, Charlie Crist, and Kendall Meek. Updated! The Outfoxed gals mangle the truth once again.

From At Large with Geraldo Rivera, October 9, 2004:

GERALDO RIVERA [FOX NEWS]: Joining me now from outside tonight’s Kerry Town Hall meeting in Davie Florida, Sen Kerry’s Florida campaign chairman, Congressman Kendrick Meek. Congressman Meek represents the Miami district. With me here in Sarasota, the great guy, Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist joins us. And although we might not get an objective assessment from either of our next two guests, their opinions are sure to be interesting, we love them both. They are Ann Coulter, the author of the newly released How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), a liberal I presume like Fox News analyst Susan Estrich, who is also a professor at the University of Southern California. But Congressman Meek, we begin with you. Give us your assessment, sir, on how you think your candidate fared this night, or last night during the debate.

KENDRICK MEEK [CONGRESSMAN, D-FL]: Well thank you, Geraldo, and it’s a pleasure to be on with the Attorney General, and Charlie, hello. I just want to say that he did well. I think that it’s important for us to realize that here in Florida there are people that are affected for real by the lack of health care coverage this administration has provided. John Kerry has a plan, and his plan is to make sure we have change as it relates to health care, prescription drug costs here in this state and throughout the country. Or you can be looking for more of the same from George W Bush. But I thought the debate went well. I thought that both candidates had an opportunity to hit their points when they should have hit them. And the campaign continues. We’re neck and neck here in Florida. We feel very good about where we are right now in this campaign. And we feel that Floridians will make a right decision when it’s time for them to make it.

RIVERA: Congressman Meek, thank you. General Crist, will Floridians make the right decision when it’s time to make it, and for whom will that decision be?

CHARLIE CRIST [FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL]: Well I think they will make the right choice, and I think they’ll make it for President Bush. I thought he did a great job last night. I thought he was very strong, particularly talking about Iraq and to talk about terrorism, and making sure that we make sure that all of Americans are safe, that they’re secure, that our families can sleep well at night. I think when it comes down to it, Geraldo, at the end of the day, people are going to be concerned about their families, their safety, their security, and making sure that all of us have a free America, and that we spread freedom and liberty across the world. And I think the President was very resolute and very steady on that message.

RIVERA: Do you get a knot in your stomach when you watch your guy out there, especially in that kind of format as last night, duking it out with the other guy?

CRIST: Well, it always makes you anxious, because you feel for them, and you want to make sure that they do well, that they communicate the message effectively. But I thought he did extraordinarily well last night; I thought he was very energetic and I thought he communicated a very effective message for America.

RIVERA: Congressman, that same question. You’ve got your candidate, so many of your political hopes riding on how he fared in a debate where millions and millions, tens of millions of people are watching, do you think that John Kerry managed to deal effectively with the charm that the 43rd President of the United States so obviously has?

MEEK: I think they both have charm; I think they both have a very strong message. But we know what the George W Bush message is. Geraldo, as a member of the Armed Services Committee and a member of the Homeland Security Select Committee in the House, I will tell you, what is happening not only here domestically but also overseas is very, very serious. John Kerry has a plan to make sure that we secure our borders, to make sure that we check containers as they come in, and to make sure that we hunt down and kill terrorists wherever they may be, either be domestically or internationally. He made sure that he dropped the ball, and making sure that, hey listen, let me tell you something, we’re going to do what we need to do to keep this country safe. At the same time, we’re not going to ignore domestic issues like health care, domestic issues like making sure that we fund our schools, and make sure that we educate our children. And also, make sure that we move towards stem-cell research, to be able to make sure that we are able to head off some of the many diseases that are facing, and illness that are facing Americans today. But I feel for John Kerry, I feel that John Kerry is doing an outstanding job out there. He did an outstanding job here tonight; overflow crowd.

RIVERA: Ann Coulter, what do you think, in terms--let me ask, I’ll have you speak of John Kerry and I’ll have Susan speak of the President’s performance tomorrow, I mean in the debate yesterday and then of course what’s coming up. But what do you think, what was John Kerry’s strongest moment in the debate last night?

ANN COULTER [AUTHOR]: Well, first of all, thanks for alerting your viewers that I’m not objective, but speaking at least for myself and I think Susan, maybe she’s paid by Fox News--

RIVERA: I got it from the title of your book, How to Speak to a Liberal If You Have To, I guess.

COULTER: --nobody pays me to take a particular opinion. So, my objective opinion is, Kerry was better on the issues where he has been focus grouped and he’s had all the greatest minds of the Democratic Party figuring out what his answer is going to be, since he’s lying about what his positions are now that he’s running for President. He spent a lot of time figuring out how to explain away his position on Iraq. He hasn’t done that for partial birth abortion, high taxes, stem-cell research, and I think the amazing thing about this debate, which no one has really remarked upon, is that a Republican wiped the floor with a Democrat on domestic issues in a Town Hall debate. No one expected that.

RIVERA: Susan, you’ve got 20 seconds Susan before my mandatory break. Go ahead.

SUSAN ESTRICH [DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST]: Bush was talking to the evangelical right, looking for Karl Rove’s missing four million voters from the last election. And the spin is, do those four million exist? Kerry was talking to the middle, and it’s all a big question of who’s out there, and that’s going to decide it. How’s that?

RIVERA: All right, that’s 20 seconds, good enough.

ESTRICH: Close.

RIVERA: We’ll let the audience judge it for its content. OK, Susan, Ann, Charlie, and Congressman Meek stand by. We’ll be back with much more with our quartet...

[commercial break]

RIVERA: ...Susan, I didn’t want to cut you short because of the break. Here you have a situation where the President, really renowned for connecting in a very personal, affable way, with the American people. John Kerry, you know the rap, the Brahmin, to the manner born, all the rest of it. Although they have remarkably similar backgrounds, one projects a whole different image from the other. Were you worried that this format, with the town meeting and people so close and asking questions, these undecided voters, that Sen Kerry might not fare so well?

ESTRICH: Oh, he’s been doing a lot of these, Geraldo. And he’s gotten, it is what it is, but he’s a much better debater. I mean, let me be honest here. Kerry is a much better marshaller of facts, he’s a very good debater. And whatever warmth Bush has, I got to tell you, his people were knocked dead by what happened in Miami last week. I mean, they were worried as could be. So everybody’s giving him a lot of credit for getting through the night. I mean, that the President of the United States walked and talked through the evening got him a long way this week, because last week in Miami was such a disappointment to people. It was really pretty bad. So he did OK, Kerry did really just fine. But the interesting thing people were talking about in that spin room, that I did want to point out, is that the answers that were scoring highest and really striking people were that Bush was playing hard to the evangelical right on things like partial birth abortion and some of the social issues. He wasn’t avoiding issues that Republicans often avoid at this time of year. And Rove was selling this idea that there were four million evangelicals that didn’t vote four years ago. And if Bush gets them he wins. And the Kerry people were selling of course that he’s talking to moderates. And the point a lot of smart journalists were making is that these guys are talking to two different audiences. And the big question in this election may end up being: who votes, who is it that these new voters are going to be, and who is the audience going to be?

RIVERA: OK, Ann, your response.

COULTER: I like Susan’s portrayal of partial birth abortion as an issue that only sells with the evangelicals. 80% of Americans oppose partial birth abortion, and even abortions of babies that aren’t already half-delivered, if it were only evangelicals who opposed that, I don’t think feminists would be so terrified of Roe v Wade being overruled, so that the country can vote. Americans could then vote on abortion, if this is this obscure little issue. But I think the point is that Bush mopped the floor with Kerry. I mean he was the one who was stumbling over himself on the answer to abortion. Oh, I so respect your felling, your belief. And this business about how he was raised a Catholic, it kind of reminds people, yeah, and the Catholic priests aren’t letting him take communion any more, are they?

ESTRICH: Actually the polls, all the instant polls, showed that Kerry was the winner, but I was being generous.

COULTER: We’ll see.

RIVERA: All right, the polls are pretty close. Kendrick Meek, Congressman Meek, back to you. You had the problems with the voting in Florida, I’ll deal with that later in the program more specifically. But do you worry that we’ll have some of the same problems? Do you worry even if there is a perfect election that you won’t have a big turnout? I know that a big hip-hop convention for voter turnout today in Miami was a total bust. Do you worry that the Democratic side won’t show up?

MEEK: Well let me just say this, and in with your last dialogue on partial birth abortion. Sen Kerry said he’s for it, he wanted to make sure, not, make sure that he’s against it, but he wanted to make sure that the life of, that ladies, a woman’s life--

RIVERA: Out of time, so sorry, Congressman, so sorry. Out of time, out of time.

Update: The newshounds (another fine product of the Outfoxed syndicate) write all this up, and true to form, newspup deborah manages to make several mistakes in just a few lines of type:

The first question was concerning Kerry, "Could he deal effectively with the charm that the President obviously has?"

No, actually that was raised in the fourth question. Deborah then "quotes" Ann Coulter:

Coulter: "Issue of partial birth abortions only sells with evangelicals. Abortions of babies already delivered. Kerry can't get communion. Bush mopped the floor with him. Stumbling all over himself." (immitates [sic] Kerry with falsetto voice)

Of course, this is another CQfD (Counterfeit Quote from Deborah), but then, so is every quote in her article--despite the misleading use of quotation marks. At best she gives us a sloppy paraphrase, at worst she concocts new wording that is actually the reverse of what the speaker really said. (Just compare what Coulter really said about abortions to what our favorite newspoodle wants you to think she said.) And finally, Deborah notes:

The most interesting part of the segment was Susan Estrich's introduction as a Law Professor at USC instead of Fox News Contributor. Guess Estrich is shifting gears and who could blame her.

See Geraldo's introduction above. Deborah got that wrong too.