Media Monitors Network (MMN)

"The American debates, of course, are not debates at all. They are more a set of joint press conferences, a staged opportunity for both candidates to repeat memorized lines in a cozy environment, protected by elaborate rules and an always-undemanding moderator."

"Washington's ploy must be seen for what it is. That the United States Administration has sought to use claims of "genocide" in Darfur for crass and electoral political reasons is clear. In crying wolf on "genocide" the Bush Administration has not only undoubtedly banalised the concept of genocide, it has enflamed an already fraught situation in Darfur."

"To use a much-overworked boxing metaphor, the debate featured no knockdowns, but Kerry won on points. Despite the constraints imposed on the proceedings, the more than 50 million viewers who tuned in to the 90-minute debate were treated to a rather substantive discussion of two competing approaches to diplomacy, the war on terrorism and to winning the war in Iraq."

"Who’s going to supervise the Iraqi national election, in January, 2005? It has to be an individual that “fair and balanced” Fox News has confidence in. America’s Iago, Henry Kissinger, is too old for the post. Paul Bremer, the ex-Iraqi Viceroy, won’t dare go back to Baghdad. Who can blame him? So, I nominate that “Windbag for Democracy” - the Mother of all Neocons and Israeli cheerleader - Richard Perle!"

"Just as with those empires of old, which sought what the historian Carroll Quigley (Bill Clinton’s guru at Georgetown University) called “Universal Empire,” that is, not just imperial centralization, but hegemony over their existing “Core and Periphery,” which today literally means the entire world, I believe that the U.S. has not only failed, but is in decline."