Actually, Bush shot him down quite nicely.

LEHRER: I want to make sure -- yes, sir -- but in this one minute, I want to make sure that we understand -- the people watching understand the differences between the two of you on this.

You want to continue the multinational talks, correct?

BUSH: Right.

LEHRER: And you're willing to do it...

KERRY: Both. I want bilateral talks which put all of the issues, from the armistice of 1952, the economic issues, the human rights issues, the artillery disposal issues, the DMZ issues and the nuclear issues on the table.

LEHRER: And you're opposed to that. Right?

BUSH: The minute we have bilateral talks, the six-party talks will unwind. That's exactly what Kim Jong Il wants. And by the way, the breach on the agreement was not through plutonium. The breach on the agreement is highly enriched uranium. That's what we caught him doing. That's where he was breaking the agreement.

Secondly, he said -- my opponent said where he worked to put sanctions on Iran -- we've already sanctioned Iran. We can't sanction them any more. There are sanctions in place on Iran.

And finally, we were a party to the convention -- to working with Germany, France and Great Britain to send their foreign ministers into Iran.

One of Bush's problems in a time-limited debate was the inability to correct all of Kerry's misstatements in the time given.

On top of that, add the quote from the article I linked to above:

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, standing at his side, said the "entire international community" agreed that the six-nation approach was the best way to deal with the problem.

BTW, does anyone doubt that keeping China happy in all of this is not exactly low on the priority list?