Jedi Master Cheney gives Padawan Edwards a spanking
Caught bits and pieces of tonight's contest. Gwen Ifill was much better as moderator than Jim Lehrer was - threw some hand grenades at Cheney, but Edwards got some as well.
See Hugh Hewitt, Captain's Quarters, and KerrySpot for detailed blow-by-blow analysis. Here's the bottom line:
Both men came across as pretty much what they are: Edwards as telegenic and smooth-talking, but callow and vapid, completely out of his depth, unable to get below surface sloganeering, sounding like little more than a parrot repeating his running mate's gibberish spin as if it was engraved on stone tablets; and Cheney as calm, unflappable, avuncular, informed, capable, reassuring - in short, precisely the man you want a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.
The key to Cheney's thrashing of Hair, the Boy Follicle Wonder, was his doing precisely what Bush didn't do last week - take square aim at John Kerry's senate record and hack it into little bite-size chunks. He didn't let Edwards get away with his ticket's whoppers, as the President did Senator Kerry. Far from the pre-debate expectation, it was Cheney who took the offensive early on and kept Edwards back on his heels, so much so that when Senator Breck wasn't uttering damn-fool howlers ("John Kerry has been completely consistent on Iraq!"), he was wandering off on tangents having little or nothing to do with the question at hand. Almost like he had no answer that wasn't a talking point or stump speech fodder.
And when Edwards tried to drop the dreaded "H-bomb" (Halliburton) on him, Big Time came right back with a withering denunciation of Edwards' own lackluster Senate record, including his hometown paper nicknaming him "Senator Gone," and this toe-curling, wince-inducing punchline: "I've been president of the Senate for four years, and I never met you before you walked onto this stage."
If this had been a boxing match, that uppercut would have knocked Opie unconscious.
One impression I took away from this discussion was that with a lot more seasoning, and a significant move back towards the center, John Edwards could be a decent, or even formidable, national candidate (i.e. Bill Clinton with a zipped fly). He was handicapped by (1) just being out of his league versus the Vice President, and (2) having to conjure up a convincing defense of the wacko policy meanderings of his effete, manicured, sociopathic running mate.
The other was that the Bushies learned from last Thursday, shed the lethargy or complacency or the "new tone" or whatever that was that clung to the President like dust bunnies on a lint filter, and reverted to the strategy - making John Kerry the subject - that vaulted them into the lead a month ago.
Big Time showed the way. Now it's up to GDub to take the hand-off and make like Earl Campbell.
(Polipundit has a hilarious debate post-mortem here...)
UPDATE: Just saw the debate opening and introductions of the veep candidates. Cheney looked composed and ready, nodding slightly to the camera. Edwards looked like he was spacing, staring off to the side, and then, like somebody gestured to him that the camera was on, he instantaneously jerked his head toward it and his face morphed into the most idiotic, Jack-Nicholson-as-the-Joker-rictus grin I've ever seen in my life.
I burst out laughing.
Given the carnage that followed, that opening was all anybody really needed to see.
See Hugh Hewitt, Captain's Quarters, and KerrySpot for detailed blow-by-blow analysis. Here's the bottom line:
Both men came across as pretty much what they are: Edwards as telegenic and smooth-talking, but callow and vapid, completely out of his depth, unable to get below surface sloganeering, sounding like little more than a parrot repeating his running mate's gibberish spin as if it was engraved on stone tablets; and Cheney as calm, unflappable, avuncular, informed, capable, reassuring - in short, precisely the man you want a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.
The key to Cheney's thrashing of Hair, the Boy Follicle Wonder, was his doing precisely what Bush didn't do last week - take square aim at John Kerry's senate record and hack it into little bite-size chunks. He didn't let Edwards get away with his ticket's whoppers, as the President did Senator Kerry. Far from the pre-debate expectation, it was Cheney who took the offensive early on and kept Edwards back on his heels, so much so that when Senator Breck wasn't uttering damn-fool howlers ("John Kerry has been completely consistent on Iraq!"), he was wandering off on tangents having little or nothing to do with the question at hand. Almost like he had no answer that wasn't a talking point or stump speech fodder.
And when Edwards tried to drop the dreaded "H-bomb" (Halliburton) on him, Big Time came right back with a withering denunciation of Edwards' own lackluster Senate record, including his hometown paper nicknaming him "Senator Gone," and this toe-curling, wince-inducing punchline: "I've been president of the Senate for four years, and I never met you before you walked onto this stage."
If this had been a boxing match, that uppercut would have knocked Opie unconscious.
One impression I took away from this discussion was that with a lot more seasoning, and a significant move back towards the center, John Edwards could be a decent, or even formidable, national candidate (i.e. Bill Clinton with a zipped fly). He was handicapped by (1) just being out of his league versus the Vice President, and (2) having to conjure up a convincing defense of the wacko policy meanderings of his effete, manicured, sociopathic running mate.
The other was that the Bushies learned from last Thursday, shed the lethargy or complacency or the "new tone" or whatever that was that clung to the President like dust bunnies on a lint filter, and reverted to the strategy - making John Kerry the subject - that vaulted them into the lead a month ago.
Big Time showed the way. Now it's up to GDub to take the hand-off and make like Earl Campbell.
(Polipundit has a hilarious debate post-mortem here...)
UPDATE: Just saw the debate opening and introductions of the veep candidates. Cheney looked composed and ready, nodding slightly to the camera. Edwards looked like he was spacing, staring off to the side, and then, like somebody gestured to him that the camera was on, he instantaneously jerked his head toward it and his face morphed into the most idiotic, Jack-Nicholson-as-the-Joker-rictus grin I've ever seen in my life.
I burst out laughing.
Given the carnage that followed, that opening was all anybody really needed to see.
posted by JASmius at 7:56 PM
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