Translation, Please

The Bush-Gore debates, put simply, are hard to follow. Between Bush's mangled syntax and Gore's droning recitation of facts and figures, the average viewer doesn't have a prayer. And pity the below average viewer.

So to provide some clarity and perhaps extra dimension to Wednesday's debate (necessary, given that the two candidates don't have any dimensions to spare), Reality Check will attempt to translate some of the gladiators' most dense Politics-speak to simple English.

What follows are excerpts of the debate's exact text, beginning with the opening question from moderator Jim Lehrer, which itself needs some translation:

LEHRER: "One of you … is about to be elected the leader of the single most powerful nation in the world. … Have you found any guiding principle for exercising this enormous power?"

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This is the only plausible translation for what are surely the two softest softball questions in modern debate history; the vaguest, too.

But even on pitches this slow, the responses were made in high Politics-speak.

BUSH: "I also understand that an administration is not just one person but … dedicated citizens who are called by the president to serve the country."

TRANSLATION: "Don't sweat it, everyone. Dad is sending a bunch of his pals, like Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, to handle the foreign policy stuff. I'll be OK."

GORE: "It means addressing the problems of injustice and inequity along the lines of race and ethnicity here at home…"

TRANSLATION: "I'm not a sucker. I know perfectly well voters don't care about foreign policy, so I'm not going to waste my first answer on that. I'm going to target my base here: minorities and liberals."

The topic then shifted to how the U.S. should handle the current crisis in the Middle East.

GORE: "Our bonds with Israel are larger than agreements or disagreements on some details of diplomatic initiatives. They are historic, they are strong and they are enduring."

BUSH: "I want everybody to know, should I be the president, Israel's going to be our friend. I'm going to stand by Israel.”

TRANSLATION (both): "Hear that, you Jewish voters everywhere. I'm your friend."

Lehrer correctly observed the two candidates wre saying the same thing on this one, and asked if there was anything they disagreed about when it came to the Middle East. Bush answered first.

BUSH: "I would hope to be able to convince people I could handle the Iraqi situation better."

TRANSLATION: "Remember how Dad sent 600,000 troops to Saudi Arabia and creamed Saddam Hussein. That was my Dad!"

Dubya might have miscalculated here.

GORE: "At the end of that war, for whatever reasons, it was not finished in a way that removed Saddam Hussein from power.”

TRANSLATION: "Yeah, Junior, your Dad had his chance and he blew it, with Cheney’s help. He didn't take Saddam out, and he left the mess to us."

Luckily for us, no translation is needed when the candidates mess up. It's pretty obvious. Like when Bush said about Africa: "That’s an important continent." And what would an unimportant continent be, governor? Greenland? Antarctica?

No translation can make much sense of Bush's comments about the shootings at Columbine, when he said, "a child can walk in and have their heart turn dark as a result of being on the Internet." Huh?

On the other hand, no translation can make much sense of Gore's anti-gun, pro-gun users position.

Overall, it was a polite but plastic dialogue, informative perhaps, but uninspired.

TRANSLATION: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.