Veep debates
Man, I’ve been listening to the veep debates on NPR for 10 minutes or so, and Cheney is just killing Edwards in this debate. Now, maybe Cheney is like, twitching uncontrollably in a particularly unattractive way, or waving signs saying “SCREW YOU C-SPAN WATCHERS!” so that he comes off bad on TV or something, but over the radio he’s killing Edwards.
Oh oh… Edwards just took the Haliburton bait offered up by the moderator and is ripping Cheney. Let’s see what Cheney says about it. Moderator only gives him 30 seconds. Cheney says he doesn’t have enough time and basically says “Check factcheck.org.” I just tried and it’s down. (UPDATE: it’s back up, I think Cheney was referring to this article about a Haliburton based Kerry ad.) I think it’s pretty cool that the veep is just casually throwing out website references; I can’t remember a single instance of that in the Bush v. Gore election. (Factcheck.org update: Here’s their analysis of the debate.)
8:43 p.m.: Did Edwards just parrot the republican party line on Israel?
8:44 p.m.: Cheney just said that he never met Edwards personally before tonight, implying that Edwards is never actually there on the senate floor!
8:46 p.m.: Edwards slams Cheney’s record in the house, saying that he voted against a resolution advocating freeing Nelson Mandela, among others. Cheney doesn’t take the bait and basically ignores it. Smart move: most people watching the debates are going to forget about it. It’s almost as if Cheney is relying on bloggers to refute or verify Edwards’ claims about his record.
Alright, I just missed the rest of the debate when my mom came in with some news about our state representative, Pete Nelson.
When Pete isn’t working in the state capitol, he’s working at the end of my mom’s street as the local butcher. Two weeks ago, a carcass he was working on broke loose and fell on him. As it fell, the weight and angle of the fall caused Pete’s knife to cut into his left wrist. He lost five pints of blood as an employee drove him to the local hospital. They immediately airlifted him to Regions medical center in St. Paul, and after a few days in the trauma unit, he seems to be making a full recovery. In fact, he’s already back to light duties at the butcher shop. So, go Pete! And vote for him in November, he’s a good guy. (Or vote for his opponent Jeremy Kalin; I’m waffling because Pete’s opponent is a friend of the family. I’m actually kind of glad I moved to St. Paul, because now I don’t have to worry about who I’m not voting for.)
I missed the rest of the debate, but you can get veep debate bloggy goodness from Ann Althouse, King Banion, Captain Ed, and Hugh Hewitt.
October 6th, 2004 at 7:42 pm
You’d just better make sure you vote for Mayor Daines when you get the chance!
October 6th, 2004 at 8:08 pm
Tell me more. I don’t know hardly anything about the local elections here in St. Paul.
October 7th, 2004 at 9:39 am
Does it bother you at all that Cheney emitted a litany of lies in the debate? Kevin Drum has a good rundown of them. Cheney’s line about not having met Edwards before is misleading for two reasons: first, they have met at least three times before, and second, as far as serving as Acting President of the Senate on Tuesdays, Edwards has filled that role as often as Cheney has in the past four years (twice) — including in October 2001 when Cheney was unable to fulfill that duty because he was hiding in an “undisclosed location.”
I’m sure you loved the FactCheck.org line, it was a great line. What do you think of FactCheck.org’s comment the next day that “in fact, Edwards was mostly right”?
October 7th, 2004 at 1:20 pm
Hmm. Well, obviously I didn’t know any of that while I was writing my post. But I think it’s perfectly plausible that Cheney just didn’t remember having met Edwards on three minor occasions. In that sense, it’s not technically a lie, he just forgot. The fetching Mrs. Wilson also pointed out that it’s not like Edwards remembered that he had met Cheney before the debates either, otherwise he would have brought it up in his rebuttal.
As for factcheck.org, I’m glad they’re doing their job, and I added a link to their analysis of the veep debates above. I stand by my assertion that, from the 15 or 20 minutes that I actually caught on NPR, Cheney won the debate. He came off as more knowledgeable, and, surprisingly, more likeable over the radio. Again, maybe he was snarling the whole time he was up there, but I didn’t actually see it on TV or anything.
But, it’s not like VP debates changes anyones mind, witness the flaying that Benson gave Quayle in ‘88.
October 8th, 2004 at 6:27 pm
Mayor Daines is the Lauderdale Mayor. Awesome guy - he has big visions for “entrepenurial goverment”.
Such as turning the Super USA into a city-run liquor store.