did a much better job of defending the Iraq war.
I think I said I agreed with that part. The problem was that he was a ghost when it came to domestic issues, and that's why I said I feel Edwards won (if anyone could be said to have won). It was by default on about half of the issues.
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".
CNN factchecked and found that Edwards was correct about the 90% of coalition deaths, while Cheney was in a way correct that the $200Billion figure does include Afghanistan. Of course to pretend that is the last on Iraq spending is a little odd and if we are that close already we will eventually cross $200B.
I thought that was a nifty line of Cheney's that Edwards was dishonoring Iraqi sacrifices by not counting them in, but that is pretty much pretzel logic. They are NOT part of the coalition and the whole discussion is regarding:
1) the failure of the Bush administration to get a proper coalition before the invasion (so where were these Iraqis then?), and...
2) adding troops from outside of Iraq to the coalition that was built prior to the invasion (Iraq is not outside of Iraq and cannot "commit" any number of troops, they are at this point all volunteer forces which could disband if they are unhappy with the government or the coalition).
It is very simple, there are Iraqis and there is the coalition of foreign nations which invaded to topple Saddam and is now helping Iraqis form their own government.
They are two separate entities. Ironically if Iraqis had acted as Cheney had claimed before the war (remember him saying they would all open their arms to us as liberators) we wouldn't need Iraqis to fight other Iraqis right now.
I suppose if we want to continue factchecking Cheney talked as if many insurgents were fighting for saddam to come back. Gotta love a guy that continues to say something which has been discredited months ago.
One might also add that (contrary to Cheney's assertion) Iraqis did have a democracy in the past, imposed upon them by the British last century in almost mirror image to what we are doing now. It didn't last and Saddam was the result.
His odd assertions that democracy will guarantee
anything about peace in the region and a reduction in terrorism was
obviously wrong. And that is if you factcheck on more than just Iraq.
One almost wonders if he ever heard of the US civil war... after all that is what the current CIA assessment has as a possible future for Iraq and would mirror what happened in Iraq after the last democracy installation.
Back to the debate... Did you feel Cheney actually answered domestic questions, including rebutting Edwards' analyses (I think he came up with a really nice dissection of medical cost issues)? And if not, do you feel that Iraq was simply the more important topic Edwards had to win on?
{edited in...}
I should say I am not trying to get down on anyone personally for thinking Cheney won. Opinion is opinion. It's just that I am interested in what criteria you were using, because mine were not satisfied by Cheney (enough) outside of foreign policy. In addition it is always fair to say, especially in a political debate for election purposes, that style and character count more, or that first impression is more important than later analysis of answers.
This message has been edited by holmes, 10-07-2004 05:21 AM
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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