What’s the proper way to spell out an awkward silence? I was hoping the transcript would reveal the answer, but I guess not. Nevertheless, here’s a few parts that stuck out to me last night. For instance, why wasn’t this quote on the Daily Show??

BUSH: You know, I think about Missy Johnson. She’s a fantastic lady I met in Charlotte, North Carolina. She and her son Bryan, they came to see me. Her husband PJ got killed. He’d been in Afghanistan, went to Iraq.

You know, it’s hard work to try to love her as best as I can, knowing full well that the decision I made caused her loved one to be in harm’s way. I told her after we prayed and teared up and laughed some that I thought her husband’s sacrifice was noble and worthy.

While I’m joking around here, at my debate party last night, my friend Dan delivered a hilarious Mystery Science Theater-style line :

BUSH: We must deal with threats before they fully materialize. And Saddam Hussein was a threat, and that we must spread liberty because in the long run, the way to defeat hatred and tyranny and oppression is to spread freedom.

DAN: …like butter on the bread of democracy.

Did anyone notice how Bush’s voice changed during his closing statement when he threw in that religious reference?

BUSH: We’ve done a lot of hard work together over the last three and a half years. We’ve been challenged, and we’ve risen to those challenges. We’ve climbed the mighty mountain. I see the valley below, and it’s a valley of peace. By being steadfast and resolute and strong, by keeping our word, by supporting our troops, we can achieve the peace we all want.

He should have thrown in a “Jesus Rules!!” while he was at it.

Here’s what I thought was the best zinger of the night. I have a feeling most people missed it though :

LEHRER: New question, two minutes, Senator Kerry.

“Colossal misjudgments.” What colossal misjudgments, in your opinion, has President Bush made in these areas?

KERRY: Well, where do you want me to begin?

First of all, he made the misjudgment of saying to America that he was going to build a true alliance, that he would exhaust the remedies of the United Nations and go through the inspections.

In fact, he first didn’t even want to do that. And it wasn’t until former Secretary of State Jim Baker and General Scowcroft and others pushed publicly and said you’ve got to go to the U.N., that the president finally changed his mind — his campaign has a word for that – and went to the United Nations.

Now, once there, we could have continued those inspections.

We had Saddam Hussein trapped.

He also promised America that he would go to war as a last resort.

Those words mean something to me, as somebody who has been in combat. “Last resort.” You’ve got to be able to look in the eyes of families and say to those parents, “I tried to do everything in my power to prevent the loss of your son and daughter.”

I don’t believe the United States did that.

And we pushed our allies aside.

And so, today, we are 90 percent of the casualties and 90 percent of the cost: $200 billion — $200 billion that could have been used for health care, for schools, for construction, for prescription drugs for seniors, and it’s in Iraq.

And Iraq is not even the center of the focus of the war on terror. The center is Afghanistan, where, incidentally, there were more Americans killed last year than the year before; where the opium production is 75 percent of the world’s opium production; where 40 to 60 percent of the economy of Afghanistan is based on opium; where the elections have been postponed three times.

The president moved the troops, so he’s got 10 times the number of troops in Iraq than he has in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is. Does that mean that Saddam Hussein was 10 times more important than Osama bin Laden — than, excuse me, Saddam Hussein more important than Osama bin Laden? I don’t think so.

And this, by the way, is retarded :

LEHRER: New question, Mr. President, two minutes. You have said there was a, quote, “miscalculation,” of what the conditions would be in post-war Iraq. What was the miscalculation, and how did it happen?

BUSH: No, what I said was that, because we achieved such a rapid victory, more of the Saddam loyalists were around. I mean, we thought we’d whip more of them going in.

I wonder if Bush has this same sort of exchange in the bedroom :

BUSH: No, Laura. When I say I “miscalculated” after thirty seconds of lovemaking, what I meant is that I’m too good at screwin’. My only mistake was that I achieved victory much more quickly than I anticipated. Complaining now will only embolden our enemies. If you want to achieve your objective, it’s vitally important that you stay the course.

Okay, I should leave the sex jokes to Wonkette.

Let me end this with the most convincing argument Kerry made last night :

LEHRER: We’ll come back to Iraq in a moment. But I want to come back to where I began, on homeland security. This is a two-minute new question, Senator Kerry.

As president, what would you do, specifically, in addition to or differently to increase the homeland security of the United States than what President Bush is doing?

KERRY: Jim, let me tell you exactly what I’ll do. And there are a long list of thing. First of all, what kind of mixed message does it send when you have $500 million going over to Iraq to put police officers in the streets of Iraq, and the president is cutting the COPS program in America?

What kind of message does it send to be sending money to open firehouses in Iraq, but we’re shutting firehouses who are the first- responders here in America.

The president hasn’t put one nickel, not one nickel into the effort to fix some of our tunnels and bridges and most exposed subway systems. That’s why they had to close down the subway in New York when the Republican Convention was there. We hadn’t done the work that ought to be done.

The president — 95 percent of the containers that come into the ports, right here in Florida, are not inspected.

Civilians get onto aircraft, and their luggage is X- rayed, but the cargo hold is not X-rayed.

Does that make you feel safer in America?

This president thought it was more important to give the wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in homeland security. Those aren’t my values. I believe in protecting America first.

And long before President Bush and I get a tax cut — and that’s who gets it — long before we do, I’m going to invest in homeland security and I’m going to make sure we’re not cutting COPS programs in America and we’re fully staffed in our firehouses and that we protect the nuclear and chemical plants.

The president also unfortunately gave in to the chemical industry, which didn’t want to do some of the things necessary to strengthen our chemical plant exposure.

And there’s an enormous undone job to protect the loose nuclear materials in the world that are able to get to terrorists. That’s a whole other subject, but I see we still have a little bit more time.

Let me just quickly say, at the current pace, the president will not secure the loose material in the Soviet Union — former Soviet Union for 13 years. I’m going to do it in four years. And we’re going to keep it out of the hands of terrorists.

LEHRER: Ninety-second response, Mr. President.

BUSH: I don’t think we want to get to how he’s going to pay for all these promises. It’s like a huge tax gap. Anyway, that’s for another debate.

My administration has tripled the amount of money we’re spending on homeland security to $30 billion a year.

To put that last figure in perspective, corporations who avoid paying taxes by “moving” to other countries cost us more than $70 billion per year. If Bush was serious about stopping corporate fraud he could have the resources to more than triple the amount of money we spend on homeland security. But he hasn’t, so we’re faced with underfunded homeland security full of holes big enough to fly a hijacked plane through.

Bush sucked last night, but the debate over who “won” is still going. Have you written your letter to the editor yet? What are you waiting for?