Veep Debate Reaction



I don't have much to add to the discussion of the vice-presidential debate. It wasn't as decisive as Andrew Sullivan thinks, but it wasn't as close as Mickey Kaus thinks, either.

It's harder to find "objective" grounds to declare a winner in this debate than it was last Thursday because Cheney did not make the non-verbal and stylistic gaffes that Bush did.

There are two big story lines out of the debate, though. First is Cheney's refusal to defend himself from serious charges leveled by Edwards about Halliburton. Admittedly, 30 seconds isn't enough time to discuss Halliburton, but Cheney didn't even try to answer Edwards' charges -- instead he just pointed viewers to a website. Cheney ducked the issue because Edwards' statements about Halliburton were all essentially correct: it was caught misrepresenting its financial positions, it is under investigation for bribing foreign officials, it did get a $7 billion no-bid contract in the Iraq supplemental appropriation bill, and contrary to past practice, it is still being paid 100% of its bills despite an ongoing investigation into possible overcharging.

The second big story from this debate is Cheney's disregard for the truth. Right off the bat, Cheney told a whopper when he said he never claimed Saddam had a role in the 9/11 attacks. The blogosphere is currently accumulating a list of Cheney quotes where he did make such claims. Later Cheney claimed to have never met Edwards in six years in the Senate, also a demonstrably false claim -- as these pictures on the internet show.

As others have noted, Cheney's attack on Edwards' record was both gratuitous and harsh. But it struck a false note for me, at least, because it looks so odd for an incumbent running for re-election to personally attack the challengers' record with such venom.

This debate will not move the poll numbers like Thursday's debate did -- there was plenty of red meat for partisans in both camps to chew on. But neither was this debate a momentum-changing, "gotcha" event that will make everyone forget how badly Bush did last week.

And that's why it was a big win for Kerry-Edwards.

Posted: Wed - October 6, 2004 at 08:30 AM        

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