Cheney, Edwards stuck to their acts
It was supposed to be the Prince of Darkness taking on the Angel of Light in a duel for the nation’s soul. That’s how Democrats hoped people would see it.
But not even Sen. Patrick Leahy could rattle Dick Cheney during the vice presidential debate in Cleveland. The Dems sat Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who the vice president cussed at not too long ago, up front, in Cheney’s line of sight, just to rile him. Cheney was unflappable.
The sit-down format definitely played to Cheney’s chairman-of-the-board strength. Let’s face it. Cheney seems more presidential than President Bush. He didn’t stammer. He spoke in full sentences. He was quick on the comeback, if poor on the facts. As debates go, he held his own and I would argue he won, if only by a hair.
Despite Sen. John Edwards’ attempts to use his aw-shucks boyish charm to crack the Bush team’s explanations about its missteps in the war in Iraq and Cheney’s stoic calm under fire to divert questioning about his Halliburton ties, there was no real meat to the debate. Just a lot of canned lines from campaign ads about war leadership – judgment, truth, right thing, fresh start – and perhaps a few nuggets of new information about each side’s domestic policy.
It reminded me of the Democratic primary of 1984 when Walter Mondale turned to Gary Hart and zinged, “Where’s the beef?”
That’s at the heart of this presidential campaign.
And in a debate between two candidates who would be a heartbeat away from the presidency, Americans should expect more than campaign zingers. We’re in a war that has profound consequences for our future, both in terms of our security and our nation’s economic recovery. Our kids and grandkids are going to get hit with the bill – and that’s the best-case scenario.
Yet the debate simply didn’t get to the heart of the matter. Details went by the wayside in favor of “you’re lying/am not/are too” posturing by both men. The vice president and the senator both held their ground on key points, but they didn’t really answer the tough questions.
When Cheney was asked about his Halliburton connections and its business practices under his watch, including selling weapons to rogue states and allegations of bribery that are under investigation, he changed the subject and pointed to Edwards’ absence in Congress. Well, duh. You can’t campaign on the presidential ticket by staying in Washington.
Edwards, for his part, seemed more slick than folksy. He always does well talking to large groups, but Cheney’s gravitas and 30 years of public service seemed to overwhelm the first-term senator despite Edwards’ trial-lawyer skills or penchant for talking up populist themes with homespun examples. Questioned about John Kerry’s goodie bag of treats – health care, tax cuts for the middle class, tax breaks for college tuition – Edwards missed an opportunity to focus on Kerry’s pay-as-you-go resolve to cut the mounting federal deficit in half in four years.
Edwards could have spent more time exposing the Bush administration’s fiscal irresponsibility and pointing to Kerry’s pledge for fiscal restraint and balanced budgets that dates back more than 20 years. Kerry backed Gramm-Rudman under President Reagan, and during the Clinton term Kerry signed on to balancing the budget by requiring that Congress not add new programs or funding without cutting other spending. This president gave up on pay-as-you-go, and that’s why deficits are sky high.
Surely Edwards has the ability to turn such highfalutin budget terms into down-home examples that average people can understand. Yet he didn’t even try.
Both men exaggerated numbers and events to suit their purposes. Edwards kept harping on $200 billion spending in Iraq, which is simply wrong. About $120 billion has been spent so far – tough enough to explain away. Why use a dollar figure that’s supposed to kick in a year from now for Iraq or pretend that $200 billion in defense spending overall applies only to Iraq?
Cheney went so far as to deny having made erroneous connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda even though there’s a video trail of his statements to the contrary and even though the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, the secretary of state and others, including the flip-flopping Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have admitted no operational ties between the two have been shown to exist.
The “global test” line that Cheney and others are using to attack Kerry on what he would do in Iraq smacks of manipulation of the worst kind. Anyone with a brain who was listening to the first presidential debate last week understood Kerry plainly said the president would always have the prerogative to a preemptive strike to defend the country. The global test is the truth. Kerry said any president must have his facts straight from the beginning to show the world this country is acting in good faith – not picking facts selectively and discounting intelligence that doesn’t suit your politics. When Americans’ lives are on the line we should expect no less.
Edwards may have won most instant polls after the debate, but it seemed to me that Cheney helped Bush a whole lot more than Edwards was able to help Kerry. Sadly, truth and straight talk had nothing to do with it.