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 bears responsibility for a misguided war in Iraq,
lost jobs at home and mounting millions without health care. The
Republican incumbent tagged his rival in campaign debate as a
lifelong liberal bent on raising taxes and government spending.

      "There's a mainstream in American politics and you sit right on
the far left bank," Bush said in the final debate of a close and
contentious campaign for the White House. "Your record is such
that Ted Kennedy, your colleague, is the conservative senator from
Massachusetts."

      Undeterred, the Democratic challenger said many of the nation's
ills can be laid at Bush's feet.

      He "regrettably rushed us into war" in Iraq, Kerry said, and
pushed "alliances away and as a result America ... is not as safe
as we ought to be."

      On employment, he said, "This is the first president in 72
years to preside over an economy in America that has lost jobs.
Eleven other presidents, six Democrats and five Republicans had
wars, had recessions, had great difficulties. None of them lost
jobs the way this president has."

      As for health care, the Democratic senator said, "5 million
Americans have lost" coverage under Bush's watch. "The president
has turned his back on the wellness of America, and there is no
system and it's starting to fall apart," Kerry said.

      Kerry and the president also debated abortion, gay rights,
immigration and more in a 90-minute debate that underscored their
deep differences only 20 days before the election.

      This debate was similar in format to the first - the two rivals
standing behind identical lecterns set precisely 10 feet apart.
Bush was on better behavior, though, and there was no grimacing and
scowling this time when it was Kerry's turn to speak.

      The debate was also a policy wonk's dream - a blizzard of facts
and figures, references to "budget caps" and other terms
meaningful only to Washington insiders.

      Taxes was a particular flash point between the two men.

      Questioned by moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS, Kerry said he
would follow through on his plan to roll back tax cuts for
Americans who earn more than $200,000 a year while preserving the
reductions that have gone to lower and middle income wage earners.

      Under Bush, he said, the tax burden of the wealthy has gone down
and that of the middle class has gone up. But Bush said Kerry would
never stick to his promise, and his election would mean higher
taxes for all.

      He said that in more than 20 years in the Senate, Kerry had
voted 97 times to raise taxes and twice as often against cutting
them.

      "Anybody can play with those votes, everybody knows that,"
Kerry retorted to Bush.

      "Senator, no one's playing with your votes," the president
said.

      Bush made a similar point when the debate turned to health care.

      While Kerry said he had a plan to help expand health coverage
for those who lack it, Bush said, "plan is not a litany of
complaints. And a plan is not to lay out programs you can't pay
for."

      The president said Kerry's proposal would cost the government
$7,700 per family. "If every family in America signed up, it would
cost the federal government $5 trillion over 10 years," he said.
"It's an empty promise. It's called bait-and-switch."

      The two men disagreed over abortion, Kerry saying the choice
should be "between a woman, God and her doctor."

      The president said he wants to promote a "culture of life, and
said Kerry voted "out of the mainstream" when he opposed
legislation to ban so-called partial birth abortions.

      Asked directly whether he supports overturning the 1973 Supreme
Court ruling that gave women the right to abortion, Bush
sidestepped. "What you're asking me is will I have a litmus test
for my judges, and the answer is no," the president said.

      The president dodged a bit, too, when the issue of a minimum
wage increase came up.

      Kerry said emphatically he favors one, and said that Republicans
in control of Congress had repeatedly blocked Democratic attempts
to pass legislation.

      Bush said he supported "Mitch McConnell's" bill to raise the
minimum wage, without explanation. McConnell is a Republican
senator from Kentucky. As a candidate four years ago, Bush said he
favored raising a minimum wage so long as individual states were
permitted to exclude workers within their borders.

      Bush and Kerry agreed on one point, stating that marriage should
be preserved for heterosexual couples. But they gave different
answers when asked about whether homosexuality was a choice.

      "I don't know," said the president.

      Kerry referred to Vice President Dick Cheney's gay daughter, and
said it was not a choice. "We're all God's children," he said.

      Kerry said that the recent expiration of a ban on certain
semiautomatic weapons was a "failure of presidential leadership"
and that because of it, terrorists can purchase weapons at gun
shows in the United States.

      Bush said there weren't enough votes in Congress to extend the
ban.

      But Kerry said if he were told by Tom DeLay he'd insist on a
fight to win the necessary support. DeLay, R-Texas, is the House
majority leader and an opponent of gun control.

      Asked about the Catholic bishops who have advised parishioners
it would be a sin to vote for a candidate who supports abortion
rights, Kerry evoked the name of John F. Kennedy, another
Massachusetts senator and the first Catholic elected president.

      He quoted Kennedy's famous 1960 campaign statement in which he
said he wasn't running to become a Catholic president, but the
first president who happens to be a Catholic.


 President Bush overlooked a flip-flop of his
own when he boasted Wednesday about launching the Homeland Security
Department: He was against it before he was for it. John Kerry told
Americans he has a health care plan that covers all of them, when
he doesn't.

      Figures and rhetorical claims flew in the last presidential
debate, and not all them were on target.

      Kerry accurately quoted Bush as saying he does not think much
about Osama bin Laden and is not all that concerned about him. The
president protested: "I just don't think I ever said I'm not
worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those
exaggerations."

      But in March 2002, Bush indeed said, "I truly am not that
concerned about him. I know he is on the run." He described the
terrorist leader as "marginalized," and said, "I just don't
spend that much time on him."

      Kerry declared, "I have a plan to cover all Americans" with
health insurance, but even his campaign does not contend his
blueprint would eliminate the ranks of the uninsured. Independent
analysts say full implementation of Kerry's plan would extend
coverage to about 25 million of the nearly 45 million uninsured.

      He also said Bush has cut Pell grants, but later altered the
accusation when the president pointed out accurately that about 1
million more students are getting the aid than when he took office.
Kerry then said Bush has not raised the maximum Pell grant as much
as promised.

      "They're not getting the $5,100 the president promised them,"
he said. Education Secretary Rod Paige said the month after Bush
took office that the maximum grant for first-year students would go
up by more than half, to $5,100. But the maximum now is $4,050.

      - Kerry, trying to show Bush has paid too little heed to civil
rights, stated flatly, "This is a president who hasn't met with
the Black Congressional Caucus." Actually, Bush met the caucus at
the White House within two weeks of taking office.

      - Bush talked about how he signed the bill creating the Homeland
Security Department, putting that on his list of actions that have
made the country safer. But he was a convert to that cause, at
first opposing the massive reorganization.

      - Kerry sharply criticized Bush on port security inspections of
ship cargo, saying "95 percent come in today uninspected. That's
not good enough."

      Kerry's claim ignores that the manifests of all U.S.-bound cargo
are screened before they reach American ports and all high-risk
cargo is identified. U.S. officials then physically inspect the
high-risk cargo - which accounts for about 5 percent of the overall
total.

      On whether the inspections are adequate, a new report by the
Homeland Security Department internal investigator that surfaced
Wednesday concluded federal inspectors of oceangoing shipping
containers still need to improve their detection equipment and
search procedures to prevent terrorists from sneaking weapons of
mass destruction into the United States.

      - Bush accused Kerry of voting 98 times to raise taxes during
his 19-year Senate career. An analysis by the Annenberg Public
Policy Center's FactCheck.org found that 43 of the votes cited by
the president involved budget measures that merely set targets for
taxes without actually legislating changes to the tax code. The
list also counted multiple votes on the same bills, including 16
votes on the 1993 Clinton package of tax increases and spending
cuts.
      


Politics and Government News

In their final debate of the 2004 campaign, President George W. Bush and challenger John Kerry focused primarily on domestic issues. The debate was held at Arizona State University in Tempe and was moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS News.

The final debate between President George Bush and Democrat John Kerry

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