[quote]Lumpy wrote:
“This is the first time I’ve ever met you.”
Oh really?[/quote]
Kind of amusing that to defend against a comment – admittedly snarky – that highlighted Cheney hadn’t met Edwards in the Senate, thereby highlighting Edwards’ frequent absences, the rebuttal is: “You met him twice in four years outside of the Senate.”
[quote]Lumpy wrote:
“This is the first time I’ve ever met you.”
Oh really?[/quote]
Thanks for this post, Lumpy. This just goes to show how this administration believes that what you say is far more important than what you do.
It would be unreasonable to think that Cheney didn’t ask an aide to verify that he hadn’t met Edwards yet. Thus, it is reasonable that he knew he was misstating the truth, aka, LYING!
[quote]jackzepplin wrote:
Lumpy wrote:
“This is the first time I’ve ever met you.”
Oh really?
Lumpa, I don’t like to call people idiots, unless it’s to their face, so I’m not going to do that.
It’s no surprise that nobody has responded to you, so I’ll step up to point out the painfully obvious.
Just because you have two people in the same room, or because you may refer to them with a “Thank you” when addressing a group, does NOT mean that you have “met” that person.
I walked by Kevin Bacon on a cruise ship once, but I didn’t meet him.
Lame Lumpa…[/quote]
Why would you even bother making this argument, jackzepplin?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Lumpy wrote:
“This is the first time I’ve ever met you.”
Oh really?
Kind of amusing that to defend against a comment – admittedly snarky – that highlighted Cheney hadn’t met Edwards in the Senate, thereby highlighting Edwards’ frequent absences, the rebuttal is: “You met him twice in four years outside of the Senate.”[/quote]
LOL…I’m disappointed in you Mr. Lawyer! The bottem line is that Cheney misstated the truth and “shocked” a lot of people with a false statement.
BostonBarrister,
What did you make of Edwards “tort reform” plan?
I think both candidates did fairly well. I give the advantage to Cheney.
Cheney comes off as a wise uncle, which really help moderate the edge ascribed to him by his critics. But make no mistake - he is tough. I think he surprised Edwards last night.
It’s bunk. You can’t dodge for ten minutes on the subject of pre-emptive war, etc. and then expect to be credible because of your “we’ll never…” comment at the end. He, and Kerry, need to do better. I expected a better defense of Kerry’s ‘global test’ - Edwards didn’t do him any favors.
But he is very good - and comfortable - leaving time in his answer. He doesn’t need to fill up the space with jabber. It demonstrates calmness and clarity. Cheney’s reply to Edwards regarding the comments on his gay daughter spoke volumes.
Edwards doesn’t know his economics. That talk of the mythical surplus shows me he is a man that hasn’t done his homework.
Edwards completely blew it on gay marriage. He insisted the states have never and would never be obliged to recognize a marriage made in another state and a Constitutional Amendment would not be necessary.
So why did Clinton - Edwards’ hero - sign the Defense of Marriage Act?
Cheney’s mistake is that he didn’t call Edwards on this.
In sum, a good debate. I find Edwards much better articulating points than Kerry. His style is defintely a winner. Are his politics?
But, in my view, Cheney got the edge on him. It was no blowout, but Cheney was superior.
So if Cheney and Edwards had met before, why didn’t Edwards jump all over that and chastise Cheney for being a phony?
That would have been the easiest rebuttal all night for Edwards.
[quote]Right Side Up wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Kind of amusing that to defend against a comment – admittedly snarky – that highlighted Cheney hadn’t met Edwards in the Senate, thereby highlighting Edwards’ frequent absences, the rebuttal is: “You met him twice in four years outside of the Senate.”
LOL…I’m disappointed in you Mr. Lawyer! The bottem line is that Cheney misstated the truth and “shocked” a lot of people with a false statement.[/quote]
Oh come on now – the fact he couldn’t remember meeting Edwards 2X at 2 events over a 4 year period hardly takes away from the point that he didn’t see him in the Senate. I notice no one is claiming that the line “Your hometown paper nicknamed you ‘Senator Gone’” was false.
[quote]doogie wrote:
BostonBarrister,
What did you make of Edwards “tort reform” plan? [/quote]
Actually, what he outlined sounded like a good idea. He’s basically admitting that in general, juries don’t have the ability to understand complex medical tort cases and shouldn’t be trusted to decide if a case has merit.
However, he didn’t touch the issue of how much discovery would be allowed – discovery, which is basically where the other side gets to make you produce every record over a period of years, can be hugely expensive. A lot of defendants who are innocent settle simply because the cost of discovery combined with the cost of paying defense counsel over that time is prohibitive.
Also, he skirted around the idea of capping non-economic damages, which the plaintiff’s bar would never support.
I think combining the two ideas would be great. 3-judge review panels (shouldn’t require experts, but that would be OK too – but probably more expensive) to review whether cases had merit, with very limited discovery allowed for the plaintiffs, combined with a cap on non-economic damages for all negligence torts (unlimited damages for intentional torts are fine).
ADDENDUM: I forgot to give Edwards some more credit for his idea of making lawyers themselves liable for bringing frivolous cases. The “3 Strikes and Your Out” thing is OK (lawyers would be disallowed from brining like cases if they were found to have initiated 3 frivolous lawsuits), but I think 1 strike is enough of a warning.
Agree BB, the nick name “Senator Gone” did not come because he was always there doing his job.
As to the debate, I think Cheney was quite poised and gave a very good image of someone who could be President if need be.
Edwards on the other hand seemed a bit rattled at times. Did anyone else notice the eye flutters when Cheney was speaking. It was an odd look for sure.
Substantively I thought they were both good. Edwards was far better at promoting the top of the ticket. I would like to know how many times that he said “John Kerry.” I know Cheney did not mention his boss by name once (am I mistaken?).
I think Cheney won the first half of the debate on Iraq and terrorism, hands down. I would give a slight edge to Edwards on the domestic side, as I felt Cheney start to fade a bit.
Overall, it was a good debate.
Here’s Mickey Kaus, Slate’s resident liberal anti-Kerry Kerry supporter, on the VP debate:
On the VP Debate: 1) Cheney isn’t as sunny as Shrek! A friend wandered in after about half an hour, having listened to the debate in the car, took one look and fell into a funk. “He was winning on the radio,” he lamented. The funny and tolerant Cheney of 2000 mostly didn’t show up; 2) Andrew Sullivan thinks this tired-old-man factor translated into a big win for Edwards; I’m with the CW in thinking the debate a draw. For one thing, Cheney’s stand-up-to-Howard-Dean line was justly damaging. Plus, Edwards at times looked like a yapping ankle-biter, albeit a well-briefed one. At other times he seemed condescending–e.g. “They want to know that their president and their vice president will keep them safe.” I got the heebie jeebies when he smarmily praised Cheney for having a gay daughter. Why was that Edwards’ business (if he didn’t have the guts to then accuse Cheney of abandoning his own child)? 3) Edwards’ great failure: To effectively make the case that Bush’s pursuit of the global war on terrror, as opposed to the specific war in Iraq, is a dangerous disaster-in-the-making–not because we haven’t caught Osama, but because we are creating the ‘clash of civilizations’ where there doesn’t have to be one. Instead Edwards seemed to be overreacting to the day’s headlines about car bombings in Baghdad, which left the impression that it really would be easy to drive him from Iraq. (As a result, even Edwards’ Iraq-specific attack was ineffective.) 4) Cheney’s missed opportunities: There were a lot of them–
a) Edwards got peeved when Cheney talked about education in an answer about the economy. How about: "Mr. Edwards, in the 21st century education is essential to the economy, to getting good jobs that pay well. Don't you know that?" Human capital! Take it away Bill Clinton. Edwards' own closing statement talked about his father educating himself in order to make more money.
b) Cheney failed to hammer home the ongoing embarrassment of now-hawkish Kerry's 1991 vote against the Gulf War. It would have been a point worth pausing for: Kerry wouldn't take on Saddam even when he'd invaded a sovereign neighboring nation;
c) If Kerry (according to Edwards) would have waited for the inspections to work, and if as Edwards himself argued the inspections would have showed that Saddam had no WMD, then there would have been no invasion and Saddam would still be in power, working to lift sanctions, etc. Right? Amazingly, Cheney didn't point this out. ...
Biggest Softball Question That Only Confirmed Suspicions of PBS Bias: Gwen Ifill’s question to Edwards:
"Flip-flopping has become a recurring theme in this campaign, you may have noticed.
Senator Kerry changed his mind about whether to vote to authorize the president to go to war. President Bush changed his mind about whether a homeland security department was a good idea or a 9/11 Commission was a good idea.
What's wrong with a little flip-flop every now and then?
Aren't those charges against you bogus? I hear you have some bullet points you'd like to recite." OK, she didn't say that last part. She didn't need to. 8:58 P.M.
doogie
I read it all, the point is everyone with acess to the internet is out there pushing for their boy right now.
I saw a poll on cnbc this morning that showed Edwards won by 60-65% with Cheney only getting 30%.
Everyone is doing it.
[quote]Right Side Up wrote:
Why would you even bother making this argument, jackzepplin?[/quote]
For fun.
Wanna know what else is fun? Watching Cheney’s girl smack Edwards on the noggin’ with this…
LIZ CHENEY ON HER DAD HAVING MET WITH EDWARDS: “If, in fact, they did meet, it did not leave much of an impression,” says Liz Cheney on CNN’s “American Morning.”
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
So if Cheney and Edwards had met before, why didn’t Edwards jump all over that and chastise Cheney for being a phony?
That would have been the easiest rebuttal all night for Edwards.
[/quote]
I’m guessing either he didn’t remember it either, or he realized how silly it would be to rebut with meetings that didn’t occur in the Senate.
[quote]Soco wrote:
doogie
I read it all, the point is everyone with acess to the internet is out there pushing for their boy right now.
I saw a poll on cnbc this morning that showed Edwards won by 60-65% with Cheney only getting 30%.
Everyone is doing it.[/quote]
Internet polls are absolutely, positively worthless. Well, really, they’re even worse that that. They actually have negative worth if you’re trying to get a real read of opinion.
Here’s a good article highlighting some of the questionable contentions of both the VP and Senator Edwards last night - some of the AP’s explanations are further debatable, but it gives a good overview of some of the disputed statements:
Fact Check: Cheney, Edwards
Stretch Findings, Data on Iraq
Associated Press
October 6, 2004 1:16 p.m.
WASHINGTON – Democrat John Edwards and Vice President Dick Cheney stretched the findings of U.S. intelligence to their own ends in tangling over Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to al Qaeda.
Mr. Edwards said the connection between Mr. Hussein and the terrorist network was minimal or nonexistent; Mr. Cheney asserted Saddam Hussein’s Iraq “had an established relationship with al Qaeda.”
Both statements Tuesday night mask what intelligence sources have said. The contacts were limited and sketchy, mostly Iraqi intelligence agents and al Qaeda operatives, and didn’t amount to state sponsorship of al Qaeda or any link to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. intelligence officials have said.
But the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report on flawed Iraqi intelligence did conclude that the CIA reasonably assessed there probably were several contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda throughout the 1990s, although they didn’t add up to a formal relationship.
The exchange was typical of a night in which each accused the other of mangling facts and traded accusations at a faster pace than in the presidential debate last week.
“More attacks, more problematic facts,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, comparing this debate with the last. She said Messrs. Edwards and Cheney had more of a chance to challenge each other on distorted claims than President Bush and Democrat John Kerry did, but “still a lot of factual inaccuracies were left standing.”
Haven’t We Met Before?
In perhaps the most awkward blooper of the evening, Mr. Cheney told Mr. Edwards to his face that they had never met before the debate, despite evidence they had. Mr. Cheney was trying to make the point that Mr. Edwards was an absentee senator. “The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight,” Mr. Cheney said.
Mr. Edwards’s campaign later provided a transcript of a February 2001 prayer breakfast at which Mr. Cheney began his remarks by acknowledging the North Carolina senator and then sat beside him during the event. The campaign said the two also met when Mr. Edwards accompanied the other North Carolina senator, Elizabeth Dole, to her swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 8, 2003. Also, Messrs. Cheney and Edwards shook hands when they met off-camera April 8, 2001 during a taping of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” moderator Tim Russert said Wednesday on “Today.”
At one point, Mr. Edwards attacked Mr. Cheney for the administration’s decision to give billions of dollars in new contracts to the vice president’s former company, Halliburton. But congressional auditors recently reviewed those contracts and concluded U.S. officials met legal guidelines in awarding the business without competition – in part because Halliburton was the only company capable of doing some of the work.
Mr. Edwards also asserted, “They sent 40,000 American troops into Iraq without the body armor they needed,” a comment that might suggest they had no body armor at all, when in fact they did. Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said 40,000 troops didn’t have the brand new, improved armor, but “every soldier and Marine on the ground had body armor.”
Mr. Cheney accused Mr. Kerry of voting for taxes 98 times. That’s down from the 350 times wrongly claimed by Republicans, but it’s still a stretch. Those 98 votes include times when Mr. Kerry voted for lower taxes – but not as low as Republicans wanted. And times when many procedural votes were cast on a single tax increase or package.
Whatever the relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq over the years, another question touched on by the debaters was whether Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had anything to do with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks specifically. There is no evidence of that.
Outsourcing Position
The vice president stated flatly that he has never suggested a connection between Iraq and Sept. 11. But he did say in 2003 that if efforts to establish democracy in Iraq succeeded, “we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.”
Touching on one of the Democratic ticket’s favorite themes, Mr. Edwards declared the Bush administration is “for outsourcing jobs,” taking out of context comments from Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and a report by a council of economists who advise the president. Messrs. Bush and Cheney haven’t said they support the practice of U.S companies sending jobs from the U.S. to cheaper labor in other countries. The Council of Economic Advisers said job outsourcing is part of a healthy dynamic in which free trade in return benefits Americans. And Ms. Chao said last month that the concerns about job losses ignore that foreign-owned companies are creating many jobs in the U.S. at the same time. Ms. Chao said employers have eliminated about 300,000 jobs in the U.S. in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere, but about nine million Americans currently work for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies.
Mr. Edwards said that while U.S. troops were fighting in Iraq, the Bush administration “lobbied the Congress to cut their combat pay. This is the height of hypocrisy.” It’s also arguable. When the government faced prospects that increased allowances for the troops would expire as stipulated by Congress, the Pentagon said it would make up any shortfall through incentive pay or similar means.
Mr. Cheney took Mr. Kerry out of context in quoting him as saying that he favored a global test before he would deploy U.S. troops to pre-empt an attack on the U.S. Mr. Kerry said in his debate that he wouldn’t cede to anyone the right to move pre-emptively against a threat but that he would do so in a way that proved to Americans and the world that he had taken the action for a legitimate reason.
Copyright ? 2004 Associated Press
Here’s a round-up of media reactions, courtesy of the WSJ:
Shaping Opinion: Early Reaction
To the Vice Presidential Debate
A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
October 6, 2004 3:11 p.m.
The vice presidential debate is traditionally where the gloves come off, as the tickets’ running mates play attack dog – a role that would look unpresidential if played by the men at the top of the ticket – and extol the virtues of the candidates who chose them to run for the White House.
North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’s job was to build on momentum from what’s generally regarded as John Kerry’s win over President Bush in last week’s debate. Vice President Dick Cheney’s job was to halt that momentum ahead of Friday’s second presidential debate. It often takes a couple of days for the conventional wisdom to coalesce, but below is a survey of early opinions from television, news sites and bloggers.
(The Online Journal’s roundup of reactions to last week’s presidential debate is also available.)
Television
CNN: Last week CNN’s political pundits reacted more favorably to Mr. Kerry’s debate performance, but tonight they declared a draw.
“The conservatives who were decidedly unhappy with George Bush last week were happier with Dick Cheney tonight and the pro-Kerry people were perfectly happy with John Edwards,” said political reporter Jeff Greenfield. “This debate may come out more evenly in the coverage and the polls.”
Sitting outside Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University, Wolf Blitzer agreed. “It’s clear that if you’re a Bush-Cheney supporter you certainly thought Cheney won, if you’re a Kerry-Edwards supporter you thought Edwards won,” he said. “Whereas in the first debate, even if you were a Bush-Cheney supporter, you probably thought the president didn’t necessarily win.”
The debate, which ranged widely from Iraq and terrorism to domestic issues such as tax cuts and gay marriage, delivered few dramatic moments, but Mr. Greenfield honed in on one of biggest zingers delivered by Mr. Cheney on the question of changing political tunes to please voters: "One of the toughest lines tonight? ‘If he can’t stand up to Howard Dean in changing his votes on the war in Iraq, how could he stand up to al Qaeda?’ "
Still, CNN political analyst Carlos Watson remained convinced – as he was in last week’s debate between the presidential candidates – that undecided voters would be more moved by Mr. Edwards’s performance.
“In the first half, when they talked about terrorism and national-security issues, I think Edwards landed some real blows,” he said. “And if you’re an undecided voter or a soft voter, you’ll take another look on Friday at what John Kerry has to say.”
Fox News: It was a long and dry debate, said the commentators on Fox News. Though Mr. Edwards performed well in the discussion of domestic policy in the second half of the debate, they thought Mr. Cheney won the more important first half on foreign policy, which they called the half that viewers were probably paying more attention to.
Mr. Edwards “sort of wandered” in his defense of Mr. Kerry’s comment in the last debate about a “global test” for America’s actions against terrorism, said Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard.
But Mr. Edwards did do well in his critique of the situation on the ground in Iraq today, said Ceci Connolly, staff writer at the Washington Post. And she said he was successful in his critique of Mr. Bush’s domestic record, particularly on issues like the planned Medicare prescription-drug benefit, something many seniors are dissatisfied with.
As for style, host Brit Hume noted that Mr. Cheney “didn’t look particularly peevish or annoyed” when he reacted to Mr. Edwards. “He looked like a man in charge,” Mr. Barnes said.
Mr. Cheney came off as “dry,” said Morton Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call. “He came off as old, frankly, although experienced.” In contrast, he said Mr. Edwards’s aggressiveness early in the debate made him look young in comparison.
“It was like a dog yapping at a grownup’s heels,” Mr. Kondracke said.
Still, Mr. Hume called it “all in all, a very civilized debate.”
MSNBC: Edwards/Cheney reminded MSNBC host Chris Matthews of “a water pistol against a machine gun. ? Every once a while he took a squirt at vice president, and the vice president would turn a howitzer on him.” Mr. Matthews gave high marks to Mr. Cheney’s line that despite presiding over the Senate, he had never met Mr. Edwards before tonight.
“Dick Cheney did awfully well at putting John Edwards in his place,” said Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign-affairs correspondent for NBC News. And NBC anchor Tom Brokaw said that Mr. Cheney “reminds me of the school principal. He sits there and he has all the answers.”
Mr. Brokaw ran down a list of Mr. Cheney’s one-liners and then noted, as if it were out of the media’s hands, that “those are sound bites that are going to get repeated again and again.” Tim Russert, in turn, laid out Mr. Edwards’s repeatable nuggets, including, “Does a long resume mean good judgment?”
Mr. Edwards’s pained facial reactions in response to Cheney zingers may show up on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, the panel noted. “His face looked slapped all night,” Mr. Matthews said.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough declared the debate an all-out win for the vice president. “This guy, Dick Cheney, is so comfortable in his own skin,” Mr. Scarborough said.
Also observed: Mr. Edwards kept mentioning his running mate (twice when he had been directed not to by moderator Gwen Ifill), while Mr. Cheney almost never mentioned Mr. Bush. “That was the strangest absence,” Mr. Matthews said.
PBS: The danger that Mr. Edwards would appear “light” didn’t materialize, said David Brooks. “I would not say Edwards looked, frankly, Quayle-like,” he said, adding that there was no moment when Mr. Edwards appeared “obviously unfit.” As for the impact of this debate, Mr. Brooks said he didn’t think “it changed the dynamics of the race.” But he added that he had offered the same comment on the first Bush-Kerry debate and been proven wrong. The first debate lifted Democrats’ spirits, Mr. Brooks said, while in this one Mr. Edwards “kept things going.”
Mr. Edwards “did exceptionally well, considering it was his first debate,” said Mark Shields, adding that at first Mr. Cheney was “knocked back on his heels.”
Mr. Shields and Mr. Brooks agreed that the first portion of the debate, focused on foreign policy, was more engaging than the second half, focused on domestic issues. By the second half, the “energy left,” Mr. Shields said. “The tension, the suspense, the real feeling of drama had subsided at that point.”
News Sites
New York Times: Adam Nagourney summed up the debate this way on the New York Times’ Web site: “Mr. Kerry clearly had the advocate he was looking for when he chose this young-looking and relatively inexperienced lawyer from North Carolina to join his ticket; and that is something that Democrats are apt to remember for a long time.” On the other side, "Mr. Cheney tried to reassure Republicans unsettled by President Bush’s debate performance against Senator John Kerry last week, while hammering home the case against Mr. Kerry that polls now suggest Mr. Bush failed to make. ? But if Mr. Cheney’s task was big Tuesday night, his path was not as easy as it was in 2000, when he faced a genial and unchallenging opponent, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, rather than the combative trial lawyer who sat at his left elbow on Tuesday. Again and again, Mr. Edwards – politely and deferentially referring to his opponent as ‘Mr. Vice President’ – challenged Mr. Cheney’s attempt to discredit Mr. Kerry’s views and record, poking away at Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush.
“Indeed, if Mr. Cheney came into the debate seeking to reverse the slippage the Republicans have witnessed since Mr. Bush’s answers and demeanor Thursday night distressed many supporters, Mr. Edwards succeeded in blocking him for much of the night, although certainly not all. Instead, viewers watched two stylistically different but clearly accomplished politicians in an intense and often grim debate, and loyalists of both parties can be forgiven for thinking that the No. 2 candidates were more slashing debaters than Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush.”
Washington Post: Tom Shales at the Washington Post said the debate “was like a tea party for pit bulls. Cheney’s snide remarks were generally more potent than anything Edwards could come up with, but Cheney has a way of emitting them without appearing vicious or reckless about it.”
Referring to Dan Quayle, Mr. Shales said "Edwards, representing the Democratic ticket, did a pretty good, non-Quaylish job last night of facing up to Cheney in the only debate between vice presidential candidates of this election year. Cheney did have a deft planned zinger up his sleeve, actually akin to Lloyd Bentsen’s famous put-down of Bush I’s running mate being ‘no Jack Kennedy.’ ‘Senator, you have a record in the Senate that’s not very distinguished,’ Cheney told Edwards, who looked almost as embarrassed as Quayle looked all those years ago. Cheney continued that Edwards had ‘one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate’ and then delivered the coup de grace. Citing his own service as president of the Senate, Cheney told Edwards, ‘The first time I ever met you was when you walked on this stage tonight.’ Now there was a zinger likely to stay zung. Edwards had no effective comeback.
Los Angeles Times: Ronald Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times called the debate “spirited and at times fierce” and also noted the contrast with Cheney-Lieberman debate four years ago. “At times it felt like a heavyweight bout, in which each fighter was landing teeth-rattling blows against the other. But behind the heated rhetorical battle, a clear strategy emerged on each side ? one that signaled the two campaigns’ broader goals in the election’s final month.” Messrs Cheney and Edwards “made it clear that both presidential campaigns believed this election could turn on a single question: Will the race be more about the record of George W. Bush or that of John F. Kerry?”
The paper also noted that “perhaps the most surprising tidbit of new information during the debate ? that Vice President Dick Cheney had never met Sen. John Edwards until Tuesday night” ? wasn’t true. “Less than two hours after the debate ended, aides to Edwards and Sen. John F. Kerry distributed a photograph from the Feb. 1, 2001, National Prayer Breakfast showing Edwards and Cheney standing side by side,” Peter Wallsten reported.
Bloggers
Slate: Chris Suellentrop at Slate.com focused on an apparent slip of the tongue by the vice president. "Does Dick Cheney know that he told voters watching the vice presidential debate to go to GeorgeSoros.com? In response to a series of attacks from John Edwards on Cheney’s tenure as CEO of Halliburton, the vice president said that Kerry and Edwards ‘know the charges are false. They know that if you go, for example, to factcheck.com, an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton.’ One problem with Cheney’s rebuttal: He misspoke. He meant to say ‘factcheck.org,’ rather than ‘.com.’ George Soros capitalized on Cheney’s error, snatched up the URL, and now if you type ‘factcheck.com’ into your browser, you get redirected to a page titled, ‘"Why we must not re-elect President Bush: a personal message from George Soros.’ " (Update: The Wall Street Journal Online reported Wednesday morning that Mr. Soros, through a spokesman, said he doesn’t own the factcheck.com site and doesn’t know why traffic is being directed from it to his site. In fact, a Caymans Island company owns the factcheck.com site and said it has redirected its traffic to the Soros site.)
Hugh Hewitt: “A Cheney win, but no disaster for Edwards, though perhaps for Kerry,” says blogger Hugh Hewitt. "Cheney wins because of the ‘global test’ exchange and the repeated blows at Kerry’s record – not Edwards’s – and Cheney’s nailing Edwards on the refusal to count Iraqi casualties. Key thing is that Kerry’s record is back on the table. Cheney is very hard hitting on the reality of the war – one weapon in one city – and a strong defense of Bush as Commander-in-Chief.
“Talking heads will have to discuss same-sex marriage over the next four weeks, and that doesn’t help Kerry-Edwards. The jobs rhetoric just doesn’t wash with the last year’s stats either,” Mr. Hewitt adds.
“‘Global test’ is an anchor around Kerry’s neck, and Edwards’s attempt to say Kerry has been consistent on Iraq is just absurd, which underscores why this election is essentially unwinnable by Kerry. But Edwards set himself up for a comeback in four years,” he says.
Andrew Sullivan: Blogger Andrew Sullivan also focused on the vice president. “The only way to describe Cheney’s performance was exhausted. He looks drained.” Mr. Sullivan attributed this to “the enormous strain of the past four years [which have included] some of the most testing times any modern president and vice president have had to encounter.” Saying “I’m not criticizing; in fact, I’m empathizing,” Mr. Sullivan added that Messrs. Cheney and Bush “have become so enmeshed in running a war that they have become almost unable to articulate its goals and process – and at times seem resentful that they even have to.”
During the debate, “there was a tone of exasperation in much of Cheney’s wooden and often technical responses to political and moral questions. I can’t explain the incoherence except fatigue and an awareness deep inside that they have indeed screwed up in some critical respects, that it’s obvious to them as well as everyone else, and that they have lost the energy required to brazen their way through it. What I saw last night was a vice president crumpling under the weight of onerous responsibility. My human response was to hope he’ll get some rest. My political response was to wonder why he simply couldn’t or wouldn’t answer the fundamental questions in front of him in ways that were easy to understand and redolent of conviction.”
Power Line: On Power Line, John H. Hinderaker said Mr. Cheney succeeded in his aim “to puncture the media-driven Kerry boomlet.” Scoring the debate like a boxing match, Mr. Hinderaker said there were two knockdowns ? both by the vice president. “The first was when Edwards kept insisting on the fraudulence of the Iraq coalition by claiming that the U.S. is bearing 90% of the expense and suffering 90% of the casualties. Cheney responded, in part, by pointing out the absurdity of Kerry’s claim that he will build a broader alliance while at the same time assailing the war as the wrong war at the wrong time, etc. – but please send troops. ? But the most devastating blow was struck when Edwards still wouldn’t give up, and came back with the 90% casualty figure. That was when Cheney, addressing Edwards as an adult admonishing a foolish child, pointed out that our most important ally in Iraq is the Iraqis, and that by refusing to include the Iraqis’ many casualties in his numbers – so as to be able to claim that almost all the casualties are American – Edwards denigrates the sacrifice of our Iraqi friends. Edwards knew that Cheney was right, and it took him a while to regain his composure.”
National Review Online: Under the headline “Mission Accomplished,” Gary Andres says “Cheney was calm, relaxed, and tough without appearing mean. He closed the eloquence deficit with his own currency of a substantial resume and significant experience. ? The VP projected competence and even some warmth, clearly ready to step into the presidency at a moment’s notice.”
Meanwhile, “Edwards appeared younger and more energetic, but also green and not ready for prime time at several points.” In addition, "while Sen. John Edwards was well prepared with his planned answers, and is clearly a skilled and eloquent debater, he left himself open to effective Cheney zingers. Unlike the first debate where President Bush suffered from some poor body language and several missed opportunities, Cheney missed a couple too, but also delivered some rhetorical body blows that nearly knocked Edwards out of his chair. ? Cheney effectively brought the Kerry/Edwards Senate record back in play. Time and time again, on taxes, the war, litigation, and spending, the vice president effectively raised the issue of ‘consistency.’ "
Talking Points Memo: At Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall blogs that “perhaps Edwards didn’t spell out how the vice president was lying through his teeth when he said: ‘I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11.’ But that shouldn’t stop every Democrat under the sun from flogging the point at every opportunity over the next forty-eight hours. The truth is that Vice President Cheney has repeatedly suggested that the Iraqis may have played a role in 9/11. ? A year ago September on Meet the Press he said that in invading Iraq we had ‘struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.’”
Matthew Yglesias: The blogger says Edwards won the domestic-policy discussion, while calling the national security section a draw. “Neither side had some kind of devastating, earth-shattering arguments. It comes down to what you think about the world. If the course we’re on right now seems like a good one, then Cheney’s arguments will seem plausible. If not, then, well, not.”
He adds that “insofar as you’re scoring this like a boxing match – round one, round two, round three, etc. – you come down with a clear win for Edwards. But “draw” is also a plausible description of the dynamics, since they basically fought to a standstill at the emotional high-point of the contest.” Mr. Yglesias says that “the VP’s competent performance just cast Bush in a worse light than ever.”
Write to the Online Journal’s editors at newseditors@wsj.com
Here’s a link to factcheck.org on the disputed facts from the debate – they do a good job mostly with “the facts”, but some of their conclusions are off – still, not bad given the various subjects and the fact the authors probably don’t understand all of them (and neither do I – I just spotted some dubious conclusions in the Halliburton section based on what I know about corporate law):
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=272
[UPDATE]
A contributor at Professor Eugene Volokh’s weblog corrects one of factcheck’s corrections – although it’s not one of the ones I caught:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_10_00.shtml#1097077179
Fact-Checking FactCheck.Org:
I am a big fan of FactCheck.org. I think they do solid work analyzing the veracity of political claims and ads. I also think that their analysis of the debates has been valuable and even-handed. In their analysis of last night’s vice-presidential debate, however, I think FactCheck.org got one wrong. On the issue of the proportion of casualties in Iraq borne by the U.S., FactCheck.org reported the following:
"Cheney disputed Edwards's statement -- often repeated by Kerry -- that US forces have suffered "90% of the coalition casualties" in Iraq, saying that in fact Iraqi security forces "have taken almost 50 percent" of the casualties. Both men have a point here, but Edwards is closer to the mark. Edwards is correct counting only "coalition" forces -- those of the US, Britain and the other countries that took part in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. According to CNN.com, which keeps an updated list, 1,066 US service men and women had died from hostile action and other causes during the Iraq operation as of Oct. 5, of a total 1,205 for all coalition countries. That's just over 88% of the coalition deaths. We know of no accurate count of deaths suffered by Iraqi security forces, but an estimate reported both by the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post puts the figure at 750. Lumping those estimated Iraqi deaths with fatalities suffered by coalition forces produces a total of 1,955. Of that, the estimated Iraqi portion is 38% (not "almost 50%" as Cheney claimed) and the US total amounts to 55%."
FactCheck.org got the numbers right as far as I am aware. The problem, however, is that FactCheck.org materially misrepresented what Vice President Cheney said. Here is what he said, taken from the debate transcript:
"Well, Gwen, the 90 percent figure is just dead wrong. When you include the Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies, they've taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq, which leaves the U.S. with 50 percent, not 90 percent.(cmphasis added)"
It is clear from the above that Cheney did not claim that Iraqis accounted for “almost 50%,” but rather that Iraqis and other coalition members combined, accounted for “almost 50%” of casualties in Iraq, leaving the U.S. with the other 50 percent. FactCheck.Org’s selective highlighting of the relevant passage from Cheney’s remarks furthers the misrepresentation. Again, I generally think the folks at FactCheck.Org do a stand up job. But this time they got one wrong.
One thing I noted last night – and I’m sure it occurred to bluey and JusttheFacts – was that Edwards hit on something conservatives have been pounding on: The Iran problem. I’m glad they’re talking about it, although I would have loved for Cheney to have been able to ask Edwards if, given we’ve been working through allies and diplomatic pressure, he advocated taking military action, and if so under what circumstances.
And Edwards even said “Because it’s important to ISRAEL” or something like that. While it occurred to me that this was a play for votes in FL, with it’s rather large population of retired Jewish people, I’m sure there is already some neo-con conspiracy stuff floating around. “OH NO, THEY’VE GOTTEN TO KERRY AND EDWARDS!”
Heh.
Of the four candidates who have been debating each other, the biggest LIGHTWEIGHT of the bunch is obviously George W. Bush.
Unfortunately for all of us, he is also currently our president.
And unfortunately for Republicans, he’s at the top of their campaign ticket.