The vice presidencial debate

Unfortunately, I thought the current vice president had this one. I don't necessarily agree with what he had to say, but I thought he carried the debate over Edwards.

I don't think Cheney won the debate.I think on style they broke even. Cheney seemed a bit more mature (sober) in his approach to answering questions, but that did not mean he escaped from the pitfalls of ad hominem and question dodging. While Edwards showed a bit too much nervous energy (overenthusiasm) in his answers, he managed to avoid personal attacks more often in order to stay on target.Cheney clearly showed himself to be better than Bush, and a competent speaker, but outside foreign policy issues he ran into real problems.I've watched it twice now, and Cheney simply did not show an understanding of the economic/domestic issues facing Americans. Note that most if not all of his solutions were to continue policy.This is not to say that Edwards had no faults. I was reminded why I did not like him and why I wish someone else (and that includes kerry) were chosen for the Democratic ticket. They are still not removed enough from Bush/Cheney on foreign issues, particularly the midEast.And on the domestic side, which was his strong point, you could still see the fascist tendencies against minority cultures. I mean if this was held 50 years ago you could almost imagine Edwards discussing the "courage" it took for Cheney to discuss his daughter dating a negro... but sniff sniff, nudge nudge, wink wink... we still shouldn't allow them to marry. His identical statements regarding a person being gay, could only come from (and accepted by those with) a shared bigoted standpoint which I think ought to have been excised from our political culture at this point in time.However, when I added everything up he actually (especially on domestic issues) laid out policy changes which Cheney avoided, and thus brought home why I'd rather see Kerry/Edwards beat a Bush/Cheney ticket.I mean I really want to know from anyone that saw Cheney and thought he was better in substance, what changes he even talked about. And if there were no changes mentioned, what has been seen in the last 4 years that indicate previous policy was somehow a success? To rest on that record seems bizarre to me.Indeed his answer on how to heal divisions in the nation, and his expression of incredulity as to why Bush didn't go over in the White House as he did in the Texas legislature was almost laughable.Watching Dick and John made me want to Ralph, but given the state of the nation as I see it, that is not an option at this time. John came off better.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I also think that the debate was pretty much a draw.What I found interesting was that Edwards kept repeating Kerry's name, but it was if Cheney forgot all about Bush. He barely mentioned him.I also thought it was interesting that Edwards never instigated any personal attacks upon Cheney's House record, but when Cheney went down that road, Edwards was ready, and spanked Cheney pretty hard.I mean, I wonder how many people knew that Cheney voted against Head Start, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, AND MLK day?They actually got him on the defensive a little bit, which wasn't easy.

I thought the debate was won by Cheney, however, I actually like Edwards, reminds me of a young Jimmy Carter. I agree with Edwards we should pursue Canadian drugs, Cheney Never challenged this, and didn't like Cheney mentioning that Bush is pursuing a Palestinain state alongside Israel, which might be Bush / Cheney's only other flaw, however, it would be interesting what Kerry / Edwards plans are for Peace in the middle east, if it includes the Palestinians land for Peace, then you can but vote for GWB, if were going to be such a force in the Middle East, the bigger picture too me is not forcing land for Peace in the Middle East (but as long as the Palestinians blow up Isralies it won't happen, because the Palestinians goal is to drive the Isralies out)(Clinton offered them this land and Arafat refused because of Jihad(they don't want peace)(which is why Cheney said you have to give the Iraq people freedom, and they will take over, because all people that are oppressed desire freedom (and the muslim fanatics desire to take freedom from the people) which is what this whole senerio is all about according to Cheney, etc... Given all the evidences Cheney made of Kerry flipping as he has done to present by the politics of the moment, thought it apparent whatever Kerry says, is not backed up by what he does, however, thought Edwards was a real person, animated, like a little Jimmy Carter, however one must question why he never shows up in Senate intelligence meetings, that this was the first time Cheney had ever met the man, truly a Senator should not recieve a salary if they don't show up, it truly portrays the democratic running mate to Kerry in a bad light, maybe if they had to show up in the senate to get paid, they wouldn't be such flip floppers, and could add input to the senate debates on the issues, to be a part of the process, instead of playing the role that everyman is an island, they truly are not playing the role of being a team player by their not showing up to be present in the Senate, etc...P.S. Kerry and Edwards according to Cheney appear to be no shows, with Edwards perhaps leading Kerry a bit in this regard, two lawyers, that are violating the letter of the law, though Edwards doesn't have Kerry's poker demeaner(Kerry is almost Gore like in his Intellectual rigid demeanor)(Edward is a bit more like Bush, in that he is more of a real person, but Cheney comes across a bit rigid like Kerry, just found that interesting, but Kerry has likely had botox injections to make his appearance more youthful(cause he is an old man trying to look young), likely why the last debate was to be 68 degrees, cause Kerry didn't want to have his chin sweating, if one can believe Jay Leno making fun of Kerrys chin sweating because of botox injections, in the Democratic Convention.

Whatever, Please learn to use paragraph breaks, sentences and periods. Reading your posts gets harder and harder as time goes on.

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AdminAsgara
Queen of the Universe

http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com
http://perditionsgate.bravepages.com

Hi Lam, I thought it was a better debate than the prez debate.
I enjoyed the little jabs each one was making at the expense of the other. Cheney is definately ol' scoo. And Edwards reminded me of a young buck with a chip on his shoulder. When Cheney admonished Edwards attendance record it was almost like a dad brow beating his son. And Edwards firing back at Cheneys Haliburton involvement raised some eyebrows. Great debate who says CSPAN is boring.

Yes, I'd have to also say that the VP debate was much more lively than the P debate. They put too much restriction on the debates this year, don't you think? Personally, I'd like to see them going for each other's throat.Anyway, my original thought was also that neither of them had the debate and it was even. However, I guess I was being self critical because I must admit that I was a Kerry/Edwards support before the debate. So, I unevened the debate to account for my bias side.Even though Kerry and Edwards didn't support gay marriage, at least they are a step up from the Bush side. I found it very interesting that Cheney had nothing to say about the issue. Even after Edwards' 2 minutes of accusation on how Bush used the gay marriage issue as a political ploy, Cheney just said "I don't have anything to say." Don't you (anyone of you, not just the golden boy here) think it was practically saying "you are right... we did use the gay marriage thing as a political ploy to divide America..." by remaining silent?Oh yeah, Edwards lied about something. When he said that no state has ever been required to recognize marriage liscences from other states, he was wrong. What the hell happenned to the full faith and marriage claus?

For what it's worth, I grudgingly admit that Cheney won.However, the highlight of the debate, for me, was when Cheney instructed us all to visit factcheck.com.I think he meant to say factcheck.org.HA HA HA HA HA!

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"If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes. I guess I'm drawn to religion because I can be provocative without harming something people really care about, like their cars."
-George Meyer, Simpsons writer

Not to simply be contradictory, but why? I'm all for giving every side a fair shake in debates (not just my side), and I really did not see anything qualify Cheney's performance as a "win".I totally grant that his performance was good, and so much better than Bush's it stood out. I also grant that Edwards was not as good as Kerry, and did not seem as "mature" a debater... not as in less good, but in different style (like the young boxer looking for the quick knockout via powershots vs the older boxer using more clever feints and traps).But they seemed pretty well even throughout foreign policy: Cheney weakness in making some rather contradictory claims and Edwards weakness showing not very clear reasoning. And in most domestic categories Cheney lost (more by default that anything else). I mean I didn't hear any actual points about domestic policy besides attacking Kerry and Edwards personally.Wait, he did have something on reform of litigation... only Edwards countered that with a pretty thorough one two punch of admitting Cheney had part of it right and then breaking down the situation in greater detail. Cheney said NOTHING in response to this.Sorry, I should have just stuck to my question. I am interested in the criteria of why you thought he won.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I have to say my favorite parts were when the job issue came up (I believe for about the third time) and Edawards did the job loss breakdown. Cheney didn't respond by saying he was wrong, he responded with tax breaks (for those who don't have to worry nearly as much about losing their jobs), medicare, and no child left behind. He had challenged Edwards job numbers before, but these numbers were firm, so he played like "Yeah, well, we did good stuff too, don't look at the bad stuff."And then Edwards brought up the VP'spast voting record (MLK Day, Head Start, Meals on wheels etc.) You could see the VP just wanted to move on right past that one.In my opinion, I saw it as a draw. I saw where Edwards could have done things differently that would have made it a clear win, but he dropped the ball on that one.This message has been edited by MrPhy42, 10-06-2004 03:56 PM

I should probably add, that Cheney also took a loss for his clear overreach in coming up with a new scare soundbyte. When he asked "if Kerry can't stand up to Howard Dean, how can he stand up to AlQaida?", I was pretty unimpressed.That was such a stretched comparison with some underlying assumptions necessary to even contemplate it as a real question, I found it pathetic.Let me say for the record once more... in the end I thought it was about even (I can understand people saying it was a tie) with Edwards pulling out in front mainly on domestic issues, and only because Cheney didn't really do anything with those questions.I mean if Cheney had stayed on course on the domestic topics as he had on foreign policy, where it looked like he was trying to explain something important and in detail to his wayward son, I think he could have won.But he left that portion slide, and came up with a few too many stretched personal attacks like the one I mentioned above.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

It may not have struck me so much a Cheney win, as it did an Edwards loss, if that makes any sense.The distinct feeling I got off Edwards the whole time was one of blustering, while Cheney stayed pretty damn cool. It was a Lex Luthor evil kind of cool, but cool nonetheless. Anytime Edwards said something, Cheney managed to distort it or handwave it pretty damn effectively. So Edwards just wound up blurting out a series of facts, which Cheney would twist. That's not something I respect, but it is the way to win a live debate.Plus, the number of times Edwards just repeated what Kerry had said during the first debate felt embarassing. Like, "Ooh! Ooh! We had a victory! Stick with it, run it into the ground! WE HAVE CATCH-PHRASES, PEOPLE!"I'll also say that reading it over in transcript form now, I'm putting Edwards up higher than I initially did. But damn, Cheney really seemed to be the one holding the room during the debate itself.

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"If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes. I guess I'm drawn to religion because I can be provocative without harming something people really care about, like their cars."
-George Meyer, Simpsons writer

That makes sense especially with this assessment... That's a much funnier way of saying the same thing as I was trying to suggest with a (in a later post) boxer analogy. Edwards would be swinging away and that's nice and all, but Cheney would deftly step on his foot and then uppercut... much cooler move. Yeah I saw it twice before writing an opinion. First felt like a tie to perhaps a Cheney edge (on skill), but second time I noticed (and in looking over transcripts) the domestic issues revealed Cheney simply bobbing and weaving (maybe a couple rabbit punches) skillfully with Edwards actually landing real blows on the subject.Side topic... if Cheney is Lex who would you say Edwards was? My vote is for Robin (from the 60's Batman tv series).

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Ha! I'm gonna go with Perry White, myself. I kept expecting him to choke on a cigar and blurt out, "Great Caesar's ghost, man!"

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"If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes. I guess I'm drawn to religion because I can be provocative without harming something people really care about, like their cars."
-George Meyer, Simpsons writer

I, too, grudgingly have to admit that Cheney won the debate. Sorry Holmes, just the way I see it. The debate reminded me of an alpha male keeping the whelp in line. Cheney did a good job of confronting the stats that Edwards was reading off, and also did a much better job of defending the Iraq war. The Cheney line that no one has mentioned yet (and I would like fact checked) was that 50% of the casualties were soldiers in the Iraqi Security Force. Cheney followed this statement with something to the effect "you are dishonoring their sacrifice". Edwards didn't really have anything to say except stress COALITION when saying "90% of the COALITION deaths". Cheney defused this talking point fairly well.This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 10-06-2004 05:35 PM