By Erin Sullentrup, 12, Missouri
Scholastic Student Reporter
 Senator John Kerry gestures toward President Bush during the presidential debate in St. Louis, Missouri, on Friday, October 8. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green) |
Questions came from 140 undecided voters who made up the audience at Washington University. ABC news correspondent Charlie Gibson acted as moderator.
President Bush was asked to justify his reason the war in Iraq.
"I saw a unique threat in Saddam Hussein, as did my opponent, because we thought he had weapons of mass destruction," Bush said. If Kerry had been President, Bush said, Saddam Hussein would still be in power and the world would be a more dangerous place.
Kerry accused Bush of making the world a more dangerous place to live.
"The world is more dangerous today because the President didn't make the right judgments," Kerry said. "This president rushed to war, pushed our allies aside, and now Iran and north Korean are more dangerous."
Forty minutes into the 90-minute debate, questions turned to domestic policy.
"Mr. President, why did you block the reimportation of safer and inexpensive drugs from Canada which would have cut 40 to 60 percent off of the cost?" asked a voter.
Bush said he didn'tÑat least not yet. He has asked the Federal Drug Administration and the surgeon general to first make sure it can be done safely.
"[I] just want to make sure they're safe," he said. "When a drug comes in from Canada, I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you."
Kerry accused the President of breaking a campaign promise he made in the 2000 presidential campaign.
"Four years ago, right here in this forum, he was asked the same question: Can't people be able to import drugs from Canada? You know what he said? "I think that makes sense. I think that's a good idea — four years ago," Kerry said.
After the Debate
After the debate, Scholastic News Online asked representatives from each campaign to talk about the candidates and their differences.
On foreign policy, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the President wants the U.S. to do everything alone.
"He doesn't talk in a way to our allies that would make them want to be with us," she told Scholastic News Online. "He keeps acting like the bully on the block instead of being somebody who understands that cooperation with others is a good idea. Kerry wants to explain to the other countries why Iraq is important to them."
"Tonight the President was Commander in Chief and I think people saw him as Commander in Chief," said New York Governor George Pataki. "He is a strong, principled leader. People didn't see that in Senator Kerry. The Senator is not the person to lead our country in these times."
On domestic issues, Ed Gillespie, head of the Republican Party said the President wants people, not government, to have control of their lives.
"The President wants to make sure people have greater control of their own money and what health care and what medicine they choose," he said. "That's one of the biggest differences. One side wants government control over issues and one side wants to make it easier for people to be able to do things and control the decisions themselves."
New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat, said Senator Kerry was more responsible with the people's money than President Bush.
"The President would continue us down a very dangerous path of fiscal irresponsibility so that young people like yourself would have to pay the debt that we are building up day by day," she told Scholastic News Online. "I don't think that's a very smart policy and neither does Senator Kerry—and he would move to really reverse that."
The next and final debate will be held in Tempe, Arizona, on Wednesday, October 13. CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer will moderate. Candidates will again be in a more formal setting, answering questions from behind podiums.
