"Iraq" was indeed the word of the day (81 instances). Second place went to "America" and its variants (55), with "troops" (40) pulling a relatively distance third. If these numbers don't agree with yours, blame our intermittent t.v. reception.
There's the list. We didn't allow anyone who came 10 minutes late to participate, which seemed fair to me, but there were still plenty of eager participants. I drew an early pick, and foolishly chose "attack" (6). The Politician had more luck with "plan" (22).
As a wishy-washy moderate, I was mildly frustrated by the often knee-jerk reactions of my (predictably liberal) fellow students. They was much hooting at Bush's misteps.
Though it's clear to me, as an avowedly impartial observer, that Kerry won this debate handily. I don't agree with some of his points (e.g. his allusion to Kyoto, his far-fetched belief that Germany and France would ever go in on an invasion…) but he made them clearly and well.
Bush looked confused. He stuttered.
Words that weren't picked and should have been: "world," "president," and the out-of-nowhere buzzword of the night: "bilateral." One of Jubb's buddies had just as much luck with "unilateral" as Freshman Matt had with a racial slur.
