Mr. Cheney vs. Little Johnny 5
Wow. John Edwards just got the talking to of his life. Unlike the last debate, which looked like a legitimate presidential debate, this one looked like a debate between a junior in high school and an accomplished, serious Social Studies teacher. Edwards was petulant, immature, testy and easily offended, stringing words together in no particular order. Meanwhile, Cheney was clear, hard-edged and fully in command of the facts. Edwards said nothing that Kerry hadn’t already said, while Cheney pulled out fact after fact after fact that put the lie to the various mistruths and half truths that Edwards and Kerry have been spouting.
Nobody had any serious “global test” gaffes, but Cheney landed a serious hit when he pointed out that the “90% of the casualties” business is only true if you don’t count Iraqi casualties. Edwards petulant insistance that, in fact, he wasn’t denigrating their service by refusing to count them was not very convincing.
The only time Edwards didn’t strike me as an earnest high school Junior was his final statement: there, he seemed like an earnest young trial lawyer, trying to convince a jury. This, I don’t think, went well. The line about “the light of America is flickering” will probably come back to bite him in the future.
Cheney wins this debate, without a question.
UPDATE: Jim Geraghty agrees with me, and makes the same point about the difference between the two that I did, but better: “John Edwards is an extremely smooth one-term senator, and graded at that level, he gets an A. As a running mate, he gets a C- at best.” Or, put another way, he did very well as a high school junior.
UPDATE 2: Check out the debate conversation at RedState, too. Sample comment: “Eh? What do health care and prescription drugs have to do with uniting the country? Edwards must have had a talking point left over on his checklist, so he decided to throw it in even though it had absolutely nothing to do with the question. ” Like I said, there were too many times where Edwards just strung words together with no coherent pattern behind them. I declare today that Johnny 5 is King of the Non Sequiters!
UPDATE 3: Check the open thread at Brothers Judd, too. Orrin has a very insightful comment that should get picked up by the Bush campaign: “It was sad enough when John Kerry’s career began and ended in Vietnam, but now his whole career apparently took place last Thursday night.”
LAST UPDATE: KerrySpot has a list of quotes, distributed by the Bush campaign, that makes it look like the media is going to have a very, very hard time spinning this at all well for Edwards. But as a commenter at Red State suggests, the media may well give this to Cheney, but then come in all ready to give Kerry the win on Friday, while still maintaining “balance.” The Bush campaign, though, has a fabulous opportunity, one that Cheney alluded to during the debate. If they can successfully spin this debate as an unmitigated drubbing by Cheney, then they can spin Edwards as a liability, someone only chosen for political purposes, and an indicator of Kerry’s judgement. This spin has the fortunate attribute of being true.
OK, OK, SERIOUSLY LAST UPDATE: Slant Point has some very good liveblogging, and a good rundown of post-debate spin. He’s got the high school junior meme, noting that Edwards’ laughter when he broke some impromptu rules was “sophomoric and school yardish.” Ok, so a high school sophomore… And here’s the transcript.
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October 6th, 2004 at 6:47 am
It seems that the NYTimes has no trouble painting the debate as a Edwards victory. Read todays editorial, it is almost entirely critisism of Cheney and praise of Edwards.