Nicholas F. Benton's White House Report:

For the first time over the course of the past year, this writer experienced a genuine sense of relief. It came at the conclusion of the first Kerry-Bush debate last week.

For the first time during the presidential campaign, the American public got a prime-time, unfiltered look at President Bush facing his accuser, confronted with the cold, hard realities of what he's done and is doing in Iraq.

Thank heavens someone in the Kerry camp convinced the senator somewhere in the last three weeks that confronting Bush with the truth about Iraq was the right way to go.

Bush, of course, withered under the heat of the facts, which hit over and over again like the giant pile driver pounding down the foundation of the new high-rise now under construction behind my house.

His carefully crafted image as a "leader" was shattered. He became whiney and defensive. It was like a first hand peek behind the Wizard of Oz's smoke and mirror machine. And it resulted in perhaps the biggest one-debate convulsion in the national polls ever in history.

In an hour-and-a-half, the incumbent president went from a lead in the polls of eight to 10 percent to a dead heat or trailing by three percentage points, depending on which poll you're looking at. As for who won the debate, the margin for Kerry was stunning. A CNN poll showed it as 61% for Kerry and 19% for Bush.

And forget the so-called "style points." What shattered Bush's style was Kerry's insistence on the facts about Iraq. Had Kerry backed off for a second, the folksy Bush could have found his footing.

Bush did not want to be there. After the first half hour, he had nothing to add, so he reverted to infinite loop replays of earlier sound-bite slogans and phrases. No malleable press to comfort him, no vice-president at his side to cover for him, no pre-screened friendly audience to root for him, he had nothing but his podium, too small to hide behind although it looked at times like he wanted so badly to try.

It appeared that Bush sought consciously to score points by his ability to recall names of world leaders or foreign countries.

But the Bush-Cheney ticket has taken a grave risk in sticking to its guns on Iraq. It means that every time either one of them defends not only the decision to invade, but the handling of the occupation, they're set up to be smacked down.

Almost daily, new official reports and assessments by experts, as well as leading members of their own party, march out to criticize and warn about Iraq. To the Bush-Cheney tandem, however, there can be no admission of error.

It is reminiscent of one of Bush's rare East Room press conferences earlier this year, when a journalist slipped in an un-prescreened question, asking Bush if he'd ever made a mistake.

Bush was speechless, and not just for a second or so. His face became contorted and he mumbled about not expecting the question. He could not bring himself to admit he'd ever done anything wrong.

Insistence on one's own perfection is, indeed, a strange obsession. It is not merely, in Bush's case, a matter of political expediency, as if it were just based on an assessment of what his constituents want to hear. It's much scarier than that. It's Bush's deeply held internal need to believe that he is but a channel of God's perfect purpose.

It's a weirdly-compelling insanity, not entirely unlike that which animates a range of more or less brutal people, whether at the level of the school yard bully, a mesmerizing cult leader or a dictator. Their internal maps can tolerate no self doubt without, they secretly fear, complete psychic melt-down.

So for Bush, there can be no compromise on the things he's done in Iraq, no matter how much of a complete mess he's created. His dye is cast.

What made me feel relief after the first debate was the fact that, at last, absent the spin, the entire American people had a chance to see the reality of Iraq and the President's flawed decision-making process. John Kerry put it out there, forcefully, saying what so sorely needed to be said in the president's presence. No journalist or political adversary had the nerve or the means to do so before this.

Now, it can be said, the American people have the resources they need to judge. That's all one can ask for. If they're still dumb enough to vote the president back in after this, then so be it. At least, at last, the case has been made.

Hopefully, it will be a few more times, as well, before election day.