Chris Matthews is a tool. Edwards completely pwned Cheney.
“The coalition casualties… [size=1]asshole[/size]”
Edwards had some good moments. I don’t think he closed the gravitas or experience gap, though. It was about what I expected; not as good as I wanted.
I thought that was a very substantive debate. I do think Edwards won pretty cleanly — in the first half, it was a pleasure to listen to him calling bullshit again and again on the litany of falsehoods and insinuations that Cheney has become notorious for. He was aggressive enough to control the discourse, which is something the Dems have been failing to do for quite a while.
Cheney acquitted himself pretty well on the defensive and remained largely unruffled. Only once did he answer a question with general blabbering a la President Bush last week, and that was quite brief. Unlike his boss, he managed to vary the charge of “inconsistency” enough to not sound simple-minded.
On the other hand, Cheney’s attacks on Edwards’s and Kerry’s attendance records at committee meetings and Senate votes seemed irrelevant and desperate. He knows damn well that all members of both houses have to prioritize such things every day and to skip some of them, and it’s pretty…elementary demagoguery to crack open that old chestnut, given that we’re talking about Dick Cheney.
Lastly, the moderator sucked. “Are you willing to say John Edwards is part of the problem?” What kind of loaded question is that? “You said John Kerry’s name!” Jeebus cripes.
Explain?
I haven’t seen the media do anything other than simply let the pundits spin, unquestioned.
One of the old timers on CNN up and called the post-debate spin room a complete joke of “post-modern media”. Nobody believes 'em. Wolf Blitzer replied that everyone had a right to speak their mind to which his counterpart quipped “But not to be taken seriously.”
On CBS I think it was, a reporter in the “spin” room quipped that both top spinners from each party said the exact same quote “We kicked their @$$”. Peter Jennings remarked that about 5 seconds after the debate Bush’s website proclaimed Cheney a clear winner, and mused that we can be sure to see similar blurb on Kerry’s site real soon. Seems like most of the talking heads called it a tie, and in the same breath insinuated that partisans from both sides will exaggerate and claim a solid victory.