First half, Cheney held his own. Second half, Edwards dominated.

[cheezus]

During the first half of the debate, Vice President Cheney held his own against the novice John Edwards (and by all popular wisdom, it should have been, at best, the opposite). What Cheney showed us the most is that he, not Bush is the one who knows what he's doing and should be the top of the ticket, not Bush.

In the second half of the debate, Cheney had his ass handed to him, and you could tell it from his body language. From the early questions about gay marriage, Cheney pushed a weak argument about states rights. Edwards began his response with kind words for the Cheneys on the difficulties of having a gay child. He then went on to show that no state was in danger of being forced to recognized a marriage from another state. Edwards also argued that while marriage should be between a man and a woman (which I personally disagree with), these couples should be treated with respect and should have access to health care benefits, hospital visitation, and heaven forbid, burial rights. Cheney's only response to was to thank Edwards for his kind words, nothing else. After this slap to Bush and his Christian fundamentalist base, Cheney was obviously shaken, and his body language indicated defeat.

What did the American people come away with from this debate? Cheney would be a better president than Bush, but neither could do as good of a job as John Kerry and John Edwards.

[tom22]

1. We are fine and I bet there is a photo

of Cheney and Edwards meeting that will be all over the papers in a day or two.

[pmbryant]

2. Odd, I thought Edwards kicked ass in the first part

and then the debate drifted for a while, in large part due to bad moderating. Edwards kicked back into gear for a strong finish.

The first 30 minutes was absolutely vicious, and Edwards made me proud, going right at Cheney for his lies and distortions.

--Peter

[lostnfound]

6. Me too! nt

[incapsulated]

3. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Edwards was GREAT on Forgein Policy, he killed Cheney point-by-point on his lies and bullshit, he got him on Haliburton, on Iran, on their mistreatment of the troops. He was quick, had all his facts at hand, he got Cheney ruffled and angry and defensive.

I was expecting him to do poorly in that area and he dominated.

I swear, I watched a different debate than half the people here.

[cheezus]

5. no, he did kick ass, but at lleat cheney sounded competent

cheney sounded atleast somewhat competent, as opposed to the stammering monkey last thur. Edwards easily won, but at least cheney sounded like he put something up against it, thus held his own

(and my parenthetical, everyone expected it to be trail laywer edwards saying something pretty to keep up with smart guy cheney. it was the opposite.)

I guess I was expecting more out of Edwards than most.

[Carolinian]

4. Edwards shut out Cheney on Iraq being part of the War on Terror.

Edwards didn't fall into the defense of voting records trap that Cheney kept trying to set. In fact, I thought he handled that brilliantly. Cheney was successful in getting in some fierce lying about Edwards attendance in the Senate. I wished Edwards had mentioned that he had the same qualifications as Lincoln when he became President.

[cheezus]

7. wish he'd made clear what role iraqi troops were playing

he had MORE qualifications that Bush did, btw