10/5 VP Debate thread

Just answer the question, please... What about what Bremer said? Two minutes later, Cheney had not only not answered her question, he said he'd do it all over again. He might have left some wiggle room there; perhaps he wouldn't have done it exactly the same way...

Edwards is stressing that he and Kerry support the troops... Edwards is bringing up Tora Bora just like Kerry did...

Cheney is bringing up Kerry's U.N. comments... from the 70s...

They're both furiously writing notes...

Cheney: "we've never left up on OBL since day one..."

Cheney is in full attack mode, orders of magnitude better than Bush. Whether America will consider his slightly Dr. Strangelove aura a benefit or not is an open question...

Edwards says "global test" is "clear as day." Edwards is stressing Kerry will keep America safe, and won't give veto power to other countries over the U.S. safety...

Edwards: "Afghanistan providing 75% of world's opium, big parts of country insecure, under warlords..."

Ifell asks Edwards about the global test. Edwards replies: "we'll tell America and the world the truth..."

Edwards: other countries won't follow us if we aren't credible... brings up 90% casualties/90% cost as did Kerry...

Edwards: JK will never give

Cheney inserts: "you probably won't there to vote for that" Red meat, but doesn't make him look good... This guy is looking really nasty, if I might use the vernacular...

Cheney: "Wanna go outside?" Oh, wait, he didn't really say that...

Cheney is calling Edwards a paper tiger, talking tough just for the election...

Cheney emphatically says he hasn't questioned Kerry's patriotism...

Edwards really needs to move this around to the Bush administration's many incompetent actions...

Edwards: "a long resume doesn't equal good judgment."

Halliburton mention! Gotta take a swig of Pabst Blue Ribbon Light! Edwards zinged Cheney by mentioning that Cheney voted against the weapon systems Cheney chided Kerry for voting against. Then, zinged him again mentioning the $7 billion no-bid Halliburton contracts in the fabled $87 billion...

Edwards brings up Bush not allowing other countries to take part in Iraq reconstruction...

Edwards brings up not taking Iraqis out of Iraq to train them for military/police... Brings up U.N. only have 35 people in Iraq for elections, "you need more people than that to hold elections in Cleveland..."

Cheney on attack: brings up "coerced and bribed", says troops wouldn't have equipment if K-E had had their way...

Cheney brings up Allawi, expect Edwards to respond in kind...

Edwards should have discussed Allawi a bit...

Cheney: "classic example, he won't count our Iraqi allies" accuses Edwards of not supporting our Iraqi allies...

Note to self: they're both basically calling each other liars...

Edwards: admin. opposed DHS ("then they were for it"). K-E will implement *all* recommendations of 9/11 commission (unlike Bush)

Cheney brings up Kermal: was Saddam in charge there? (must check)

Gwen: she brings up Halliburton, and sanctions against Iran... (insert 60 Minutes story here)

Cheney: A.Q. Khan has been "shut down"

Edwards: "Iran has moved forward with their nuke program... on their watch"

Edwards brings up 60 Minutes story...

Four Halliburton references and one Enron...

'Net head Cheney recommends we go to factcheck.com (correct URL?)

Cheney bringing up Edwards not attending senate meetings... Cheney playing "I'm the head of the Senate" card...

Cheney brings up Iraq paying suicide bombers, what about Saudis? Edwards must make that point again...

Cheney just sat there and smirked while Edwards played the race card and other cards via Cheney voting against MLK bday, head start, Dept of Edu., etc. etc...

Edwards: 1.6 mil priv sector jobs lost, 2.7 manufacturing, etc. (check these stats)

Edwards: admininstration says over and over that outsourcing millions of jobs is a good thing...

Cheney is a bit out of his depth on domestic issues...

Edwards shouldn't have discussed medical costs going up higher than other costs...

Edwards: deficits are biggest turnaround in U.S. history... J-E believe they have a "moral responsibility" not to leave a big deficit...

Edwards: we'll reduce the deficit by half and bring U.S. "back to fiscal responsibility"...

Cheney promise "fiscal restraint", blogger says B.S.

Edwards: Kerry has voted for tax cuts 600 times...

Cheney explains his gay marriage nuance, says it's states' rights... (quick, check Sully!)

Edwards brings up coupon clippers paying less tax than soldiers...

Edwards says he doesn't doubt that Cheney loves his gay daughter....

Edwards says Cheney probably supports the same gay marriage position as K-E... Says gay marriage is just for political purposes...

Cheney thanks Edwards for the kind words...

Edwards is talking about reforming his lucrative profession, now bringing up one of his compelling cases... They just needed a 2 cent screw to fix the problem...

Edwards puts medical law suits into context...

Edwards: "Medicare premiums up 17% on their watch", administration unwilling to crack down on pharm companies...

Cheney says 17% increase is due to something Kerry voted for... brings up Subchapter S just like Rush did earlier today, perhaps they're working off the same chief...

Edwards: yet another Halliburton ref, this time off-shore shelters...

Cheney has trouble discussing AIDS in America rather than around the world, says he wasn't aware of Gwen's statistic...

Edwards won't discuss AIDS in America either, preferring to talk about Africa. Now he switches to America, but brings it to health care coverage, says needs to be preventative care. Neither really answered Gwen's question...

Edwards: "I don't have the long resume that Cheney has, that's the truth..." Edwards tries to answer doubts about his experience to possibly be president...

Cheney is muffling his mic, not a smart move, brings up Bush choosing him for his experience, says he doesn't have a hidden agenda (i.e. becoming president)

Cheney: "GWB would be the better president, he's done it for four years". Yes, we know. We know. "I'm not at all his opponent [is qualified]"

Cheney now bringing up his hardscrabble beginnings, putting a human face over the Darth Vader mask. Unfortunately, he's muzzling his mic again, making it a bit less effective...

Edwards: three years after 9/11, we still don't have a unified watch list, we don't screen cargo

LW: Bring up border security, I command you!

Edwards: brings up Bremer's recent comments. Now, discussing Bush's flip-flops...

Edwards keeps hammering on Bush's flip-flops, brings up Patient's Bill of Rights that he and John McCain wrote...

Cheney brings up Kerry voting for/against $87 billion, but people will remember what Edwards said about Halliburton's slice...

Cheney slags off Massachusetts...

Cheney is engaging in wonk-speak during his final comments. America sleeps...

Edwards: says Bush is a divider, not a uniter and that he's been creating divisions... Brings up healthcare...

Edwards continues his healthcare coverage... He'll stand up to the drug companies and their out of control TV advertising...

Cheney, once again, doesn't know where to start...

Edwards: Canadian drugs, "they were with the drug companies", repeated a few times now

Edwards brings up his hardscrabble beginnings, America is the greatest country in the world, etc... BUT: the light of America is flickering because of Bush-Cheney. "What they're going to give you is four more years of the same." Give tax cuts to companies that don't outsource... "JK and I are asking you to give us the power to help you."

Will Darth be able to counter that?

Cheney is flubbing his final comment a bit, spewing facts that are in dispute because of Edwards' previous comments...

Cheney playing the terrorism card...

Boy, this sounds like a rehearsed speech. It's going in America's left ear and flowing right out the right one...

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Holy God!

Please, bring Bush back! I was able to blog during his sputtering.

I'm going to score this slight advantage to Edwards. Cheney scored on several points, but so did Edwards. And, Edwards got several points in that cast doubts on the things that Cheney was saying. He didn't get enough in; if he'd indicted the Bush administration for their failures he could have cleaned up.

Edwards and Cheney both have red state appeal; Cheney has zero blue state appeal.

Edwards made a major mistake by humanizing Cheney by talking about his daughter (who's gay, by the way). After that, Cheney softened a bit into a kindler, gentler Darth Vader.

So, Cheney became less scary for some people, but might have become a bit pathetic as well.

On the other hand, I think many people might have been assured that Edwards would tell them the truth, unlike perhaps the current administration.

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I feel strangely disconnected from NBC interviewing Wonkette and PowerLine. They don't represent blogdom, Tom.

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Here's a question. Does Cheney saying that he'd do the "same course of action" regarding Iraq mean that he would send too few troops the second time?

Does that mean the second time he'd leave the spy headquarters unguarded? ("Press and looters vie for Saddam's secrets")

The second time, would it take days to shut down the propaganda from Iraqi TV?

Does that mean that the second time around he'd let people walk off with 1/5 of the nuclear material from al Tuwaitha?

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Comments

I went to check out www.factcheck.com and read a very interesting article/plea by Geroge Soros to consider how Bush & Cheney are taking us in the wrong direction and endangering American lives with their policies. Hmmm...I think Cheney flubbed that one.

Later, though, I was told that he meant to say www.factcheck.org (which is a non-partisan, non-profit journalistic organization) which does talk about the misrepresentation in a Kerry ad about him directly benefiting from the Halliburton deal. The interesting thing is there are tons of Bush ads that misrepresent Kerry's positions. It really illustrates that 1) Bush & Cheney aren't being straight with the American people 2) They don't know how or don't really care to play fair and 3) This whole flip-flop thing is nothing more than a soundbite. They've got nothing of substance to back it up, especially when you take the time to look at the facts. It's really a weak point for them given they've been caught repeatedly contradicting themselves (Cheney was busted just tonight by the news programs on two different occasions: Intentionally making and exploiting the Iraq/9-11 connection, and never having met Sen. Edwards before.) I wanted to believe that Bush & Cheney had a well thought out position and conviction of belief they were willing to stand behind, but they don't because their too busy sullying the truth and essentially lying to the American people. I'm so disappointed in this administration.

Halliburton -- isn't that the company that got sole source contracts for Bosnia under Clinton, and won the competitive recompete? They must have something on the ball...

Cheney owned Edwards in this debate. I don't think many people will agree with you that we don't want someone who is a little scary on our side in the war on terror.

We will see if this has any effect in the campaign or not, this is mostly a sideshow after all, but despite that, Cheney won solidly.

Cheney owned Edwards in this debate. I don't think many people will agree with you that we don't want someone who is a little scary on our side in the war on terror.

We will see if this has any effect in the campaign or not, this is mostly a sideshow after all, but despite that, Cheney won solidly.

Cheney owned Edwards in this debate. I don't think many people will agree with you that we don't want someone who is a little scary on our side in the war on terror.

We will see if this has any effect in the campaign or not, this is mostly a sideshow after all, but despite that, Cheney won solidly.