The VP Debate

The debate last night was great, much better than the presidential one. And, Cheney won, despite the post debate spin. Edwards was physically flustered throughout the debate and Cheney remained calm and cool at all times. Cheney landed some decisive blows against the Kerry/Edwards camp by attacking their record in the Senate as well as the noticeable absence from the Senate, missing countless votes on things such as Medicare reform, taxes, and energy. Edwards is attempting to fast track up the political ladder while putting as little effort in as possible.

Here is another huge blow struck by Cheney last night:

The problem we have is that, if you look at his record, he doesn't display the qualities of somebody who has conviction.

And with respect to this particular operation, we've seen a situation in which, first, they voted to commit the troops, to send them to war, John Edwards and John Kerry, then they came back and when the question was whether or not you provide them with the resources they needed -- body armor, spare parts, ammunition -- they voted against it.

I couldn't figure out why that happened initially. And then I looked and figured out that what was happening was Howard Dean was making major progress in the Democratic primaries, running away with the primaries based on an anti-war record. So they, in effect, decided they would cast an anti-war vote and they voted against the troops.

Now if they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to Al Qaida?

Edwards got Halliburton wrong last night, and even when refuted kept going with error. Come to find out, it was not that Halliburton got the nod on a no-bid job, but they got the contract because they were the only company that could do the job that was required and within the allotted time, not because Dick Cheney was the former CEO. In this day and age of the blogosphere and media watchdogs, it’s hard to imagine Edwards coming to the table with faulty info and trying to make it work. In the past, when people just took what the politicians and media said as truth and never questioned it, this tactic would have succeeded. I’m convinced this is what Dan Rather thought about the forged memos. Nobody will question the word of “The Dan”, as he was dubbed by Bernard Goldberg in his book Bias. These tactics will not work anymore.

Cheney was smart to call Edwards on his diminishing of the role of the Iraqi people in the war. They are giving their lives to liberate their country too, and should be counted in Iraqi Coalition as well. The Kerry camp’s desire to make this war look bad, and especially by trying to discredit Prime Minister Allawi, is going to shoot them in the foot, especially when Allawi and Iraq are going to play a prominent role in their so called “coalition”.


But did this debate do anything for the undecided? I have to say probably not. The base for both camps is secure and the debate last night continued to pump them up. But, as I believe Tim Russert said on NBC this morning, there is three weeks to go, and what is it going take make a decision.

As I have ranted on long enough, make sure to check out the real pundits here, here, here, here, and here. A debate transcript is available here.