Shrek vs. Breck

Fact checkers are going to have a field day with some of his answers.

Just The Facts, Men
(CBS/AP) Whether it was Dick Cheney's faux-pas about never meeting his rival or John Edwards' oversimplifications about troops in Iraq, the vice presidential debaters stretched facts even as they claimed the high ground in setting the record straight.

Technicalities were cast aside on both sides.

Cheney said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry voted for the Iraq war, but the reality was more complex. The senator backed a resolution that allowed the war to happen but said he took President Bush at his word that he'd exhaust weapons inspections and build a true coalition first.

Edwards turned a complicated matter involving allowances for troops into a "height of hypocrisy" effort by Mr. Bush to "cut their combat pay" even as they fought in Iraq.

The accusations flew. Sometimes the target had a chance to swat them down. Often they went unanswered.

"A lot of factual inaccuracies were left standing," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who monitors the campaign for distortion as director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Cheney declared Saddam Hussein's Iraq "had an established relationship with al Qaeda" despite the prevailing theory by U.S. intelligence that such a link was tenuous and did not amount to state sponsorship of the terrorist organization or any link to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Edwards asserted the connection was minimal or nonexistent. The recent Senate Intelligence Committee report on flawed Iraqi intelligence did conclude, however, that the CIA was reasonable in thinking there were probably several contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda throughout the 1990s, although they did not add up to a formal relationship.

In perhaps the most awkward blooper of the evening, Cheney told Edwards to his face that they had never met before the debate.

Edwards' campaign later provided a transcript of a February 2001 prayer breakfast at which Cheney began his remarks by acknowledging the North Carolina senator. The campaign said the two also met when Edwards accompanied the other North Carolina senator, Elizabeth Dole, to her swearing-in ceremony.

Cheney and Edwards also shook hands when they met off-camera during an April 2001 taping of NBC's "Meet the Press," moderator Tim Russert said Wednesday on "Today."

Cheney was trying to make the point that Edwards was an absentee senator. "The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight."

At one point, Edwards attacked Cheney for the administration's decision to give billions of dollars in new contracts in Iraq to Halliburton Co., which the vice president once headed. But congressional auditors recently concluded U.S. officials met legal guidelines in awarding the business without competition — in part because Halliburton was the only company capable of doing some of the work.

Edwards also asserted, "They sent 40,000 American troops into Iraq without the body armor they needed," a comment that might suggest they had no body armor at all, when in fact they did.

Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said 40,000 troops did not have the brand new, improved armor but, "every soldier and Marine on the ground had body armor."

Edwards also claimed, as Kerry has, that the Iraq war had cost the United States $200 billion. While the war is expected to cost that much by the end of next year, to date the estimate is closer to $120 billion, as Cheney asserted.

Cheney accused Kerry of voting for taxes 98 times. That's down from the 350 times wrongly claimed by Republicans, but it's still iffy. Those 98 votes include times when many procedural votes were cast on a single tax increase or package, according to an analysis by Annenberg's FactCheck.org.

Cheney meant to cite FactCheck.org on another occasion during the debate but he got it wrong, and unintentionally steered Web surfers to a site run by the anti-Bush activist billionaire, George Soros. Cheney said "factcheck.com," when he should have used "org."

Whatever the relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq over the years, another question was whether Saddam's Iraq had anything to do with the Sept. 11 attacks specifically. There is no evidence of that.

The vice president stated flatly that he has never suggested a connection between Iraq and Sept. 11.

But he did say in 2003 that if efforts to establish democracy in Iraq succeeded, "we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

Touching on a favorite Democratic theme, Edwards declared the Bush administration is "for outsourcing jobs," taking out of context comments from Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and a report by a council of economists who advise the president. Mr. Bush and Cheney have not said they favor the practice of U.S companies sending jobs from the United States to cheaper labor abroad.

The Council of Economic Advisers said job outsourcing is part of a healthy dynamic in which free trade in return benefits Americans. And Chao said last month that the concerns about job losses ignore that foreign-owned companies are creating many jobs in the United States at the same time.

Also in the debate, Edwards said that while U.S. troops were fighting in Iraq, the Bush administration "lobbied the Congress to cut their combat pay. This is the height of hypocrisy."

It's also arguable. When the government faced prospects that increased allowances for the troops would expire as stipulated by Congress, the Pentagon said it would make up any shortfall through incentive pay or similar means.

©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

edit...

OOPS! I screwed up. mc was asking for Edwards lies... I posted Cheney lies, my mistake...

 

The article I posted above has several.

$200 billion spent in Iraq is misleading, intentionally so.

The number of jobs lost during GWB presidency is only current to the end of 2003, more intentional deception.

 

Good post Max! And the very reason we have the most important tool at governmental disposal. The right to vote!

 

Max, I agree that in general both parties are guilty of the same things, that both sides should be upset by their own parties as well as the other parties.

I see where you were coming from. I was making my comments based on this particular race, or specifically last night. You were talking about the general state of politics.

 

I agree that the 200Billion is incorrect because it is proposed spending. The kerry camp is stupid for making this mistake. All they have to do is say that in spending and proposed spending by this administration... That would fix the accuracy.

The jobs one wouldn't be so much of problem. That will change all the time. They should note that their figures aren't current, though. I think the better route for Kerry and Edwards would be to say that the Bush administration hasn't created 1 net job. He's the first president since Hoover to not have even 1 net job gained during his time in office. That would be accurate no matter what the latest figurs are. Then they can mention current figures in swing states like Ohio.

 

Interesting poll question on CNN and an even more interesting outcome so far...

Did the vice presidential debate help you decide which way you will vote?

Yes 50% 183511 votes

No 50% 180170 votes

Total: 363681 votes

 

Runners Advance
Edwards keeps the Democrats' rally going.
By William Saletan
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004, at 2:29 AM PT


Now are you sorry you didn't nominate this guy for president?

That's what I wanted to ask Democrats as I watched John Edwards knock Dick Cheney around the ring tonight. If the Iowa caucuses had been held two days later, Edwards might have beaten John Kerry there and won the nomination. Democrats might have been spared months of caveat-riddled circumlocutions that helped sour swing voters on their presidential nominee. We might have heard a clear Democratic message.

Well, at least we heard it tonight.

Cheney and Edwards apparently went into this debate with different theories of what it was for. When moderator Gwen Ifill asked them to discuss their differences, Cheney said "the most important consideration in picking a vice president" was having "somebody who could take over." Edwards answered the same question by outlining Kerry's platform, virtues, and accomplishments. Cheney seemed to think most viewers were tuning in to judge the vice presidential nominees. Edwards seemed to think they were tuning in to hear about the presidential nominees.

If Cheney guessed right on that question, he probably won. But if he guessed wrong—and I suspect he did—Edwards kicked his expletive. If you watched this debate as an uninformed voter, you heard an avalanche of reasons to vote for Kerry. You heard 23 times that Kerry has a "plan" for some big problem or that Bush doesn't. You heard 10 references to Halliburton, with multiple allegations of bribes, no-bid contracts, and overcharges. You heard 13 associations of Bush with drug or insurance companies. You heard four attacks on him for outsourcing. You heard again and again that he opposed the 9/11 commission and the Department of Homeland Security, that he "diverted" resources from the fight against al-Qaida to the invasion of Iraq, and that while our troops "were on the ground fighting, [the administration] lobbied the Congress to cut their combat pay." You heard that Kerry served in Vietnam and would "double the special forces." You heard that Bush is coddling the Saudis, that Cheney "cut over 80 weapons systems," and that the administration has no air-cargo screening or unified terrorist watch list.

As the debate turned to domestic policy, you heard that we've lost 1.6 million net jobs and 2.7 million net manufacturing jobs under Bush. You heard that he's the first president in 70 years to lose jobs. You heard that 4 million more people live in poverty, and 5 million have lost their health insurance. You heard that the average annual premium has risen by $3,500. You heard that we've gone from a $5 trillion surplus to a $3 trillion debt. You heard that a multimillionaire sitting by his swimming pool pays a lower tax rate than a soldier in Iraq. You heard that Bush has underfunded No Child Left Behind by $27 billion. You heard that Kerry, unlike Bush, would let the government negotiate "to get discounts for seniors" and would let "prescription drugs into this country from Canada." You heard that at home and abroad, Bush offers "four more years of the same."

Most Democrats, including Kerry, duck and cover when Republicans bring up values. Not Edwards. He knows the language and loves to turn it against the GOP. The word "moral" was used twice in this debate. The word "value" was used three times. All five references came from Edwards. He denounced the "moral" crime of piling debt on our grandchildren. He called the African AIDS epidemic and the Sudan genocide "huge moral issues." When Ifill asked him about gay marriage, he changed the subject to taxes. "We don't just value wealth, which they do," said Edwards. "We value work in this country. And it is a fundamental value difference between them and us."

Edwards applied the same jujitsu elsewhere. He framed his vote against the $87 billion Iraq appropriation as a vote against a $7.5 billion "no-bid contract for Halliburton." When Cheney faulted Kerry's inconsistency, Edwards argued that Kerry, unlike Bush, had been "consistent from the beginning that we must stay focused on the people who attacked us." When Cheney accused Kerry of weakening America by subjecting its foreign policy decisions to the approval of allies, Edwards replied that Bush, by refusing to persuade allies, was leaving Americans to bear the war's costs and casualties.

My favorite moment came when Cheney impugned Edwards' voting record. Edwards replied that Cheney had voted against Head Start, Meals on Wheels, the Department of Education, and the Martin Luther King holiday. It was such a devastating flurry of kidney punches, so blandly and shamelessly delivered, that my wife and I burst into sobs of weeping laughter. At the skill or the gall, I'm not sure which.

The charge that did the most damage was the one Edwards leveled at the outset: that Bush and Cheney aren't telling the truth about prewar and postwar Iraq. Edwards listed the evidence contradicting Cheney's assurances about the current situation: the monthly escalation of American casualties, criticism of the administration's incompetence by Republican senators, and a critique issued Monday by Bush's former Iraq administrator. Then he listed the evidence contradicting Cheney's associations of the Iraq war with 9/11: testimony from Secretary of State Powell and reports from the 9/11 commission and the CIA.

To this indictment, Edwards added two others. In Afghanistan, he blamed Bush for letting Osama Bin Laden escape Tora Bora to strike again. In Iran, he accused Cheney of opposing sanctions against "sworn enemies of the United States"—and an emerging nuclear threat—because Halliburton had business there. Together, the charges painted a picture of an administration that spent its ammunition on the wrong target, allowing more serious threats to flourish.

Edwards' assault took Cheney completely off his game. Cheney spent the first 15 minutes defending the administration, unable to deliver his prepared attacks on Kerry. He lost his cool and started to snap at Edwards, saying, "You probably weren't there to vote for that," and "You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate." Though Edwards was delivering the harsher blows, Cheney looked meaner. But the most important effect of Edwards' onslaught was to provoke three gaffes from the vice president.

One was minor but conspicuous. "I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer," Cheney told the younger man, scolding him for poor attendance. "I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight." It took the Kerry campaign less than two hours to send reporters a picture of Cheney standing next to Edwards three years ago. In 2000, the Bush-Cheney campaign and the press roasted Al Gore for claiming in a debate that he had been with another public official (James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency) when in fact he hadn't. Now Cheney has committed the same offense in reverse.

The other gaffes were more serious. "I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11," Cheney said in response to Edwards' initial salvo. Later, Cheney tried to deflect a CIA report, which, according to the New York Times, "says it is now not clear whether Mr. Hussein's government harbored members of a group led by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." Cheney insisted, "A CIA spokesman was quoted in that story as saying they had not yet reached the bottom line, and there is still debate." On the first question, Cheney pitted himself against a long, videotaped record of him suggesting connections between Iraq and 9/11. On the second, he pitted himself against a clear trend of intelligence, of which further details are likely to be leaked or extracted as the public feud grows between Cheney and skeptics in intelligence agencies.

With the Republican Convention extending into September, never has a trailing ticket had so little time to fight its way back into the race. Democrats desperately needed to regain and maintain control of the election agenda. Kerry had to knock Bush back on his heels in the first debate so he could broaden the discussion to domestic policy. Edwards had to do the same to Cheney, ideally generating new story lines about the administration's difficulty with reality. It's like a ninth-inning rally. Kerry got the lead-off hit. Edwards singled him to third. How will it end? Pass the popcorn.

William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2107808/

 

This article is the first slightly convincing argument I've seen that explains how people think Edwards won the debate. It makes some concrete points. I guess Will was able to look at the debate in a different light than I did.

 

Saddly very true.

That said I think the Bush / Cheney campaign should be taken to task over their inconsitencies because the keyword to their campaign is "consistency".

The Kerry / Edwards campaign keyword "judgement" so different responses to different situations are to be expected from them.

 

If I had to choose a "winner," I'd pick Cheney. And I'm voting for Kerry in Nov.

On most points these guys were equal. They both responded to attacks with more attacks in kind, rather than defending themselves. Both did a very poor job of answering the questions asked, though I think Edwards was even worse. I found myself often yelling at him on the television "stay on track!" If you've got the issues on your side, don't skirt them.

The answers to the AIDS question was ridiculous. The question asked what we could do specifically to combat AIDS here in the US. Neither answered that at all; both talked about Africa. Cheney mentioned the life-prolonging drugs. Edwards talked about healthcare; (again!) what the hell did that have to do with it? Education! Prevention! Abstinence! Condoms! Come on. Didn't you guys agree to these questions beforehand anyway?

Both had scewed facts, the Veep had more- and some possible outright lies. Edwards' bits about cutting combat pay for soldiers and the body armor, though standard fare in the campaign, aren't completely true. Cheny had several major missteps- and the continual haranguing about AQ and Saddam is just ridiculous.

Cheney was always calm and in control and authorative. He never got too defensive with Edwards' attacks, though he was obviously bothered a couple of times. Burying his chin in his hands and wiping his nose often were kind of... slouchy.

Edwards constant gesturing and facial reactions to Chaney's attacks communicated some nervousness and a lack of security. Not much, really, but next to Chaney's utter calm it looked that way.

It was very surprising and interesting to me that in most polls, Edwards won by huge majorities. To me, since the attacking and poo-flinging worked out to be equal, it came down to presence and composure- on those counts Chaney wins.

Oh, and that last speech by Edwards when he looked into the camera and did this campy "I'm talking about something personal and emotional here" just made me and everone in the room (all liberal) totally cringe. That slick crap represents perfectly everything that is gross about Democrat politicians. Ugh.

 

No, they didn't. The moderator stated at the outset that neither candidate were aware of the questions beforehand.

 

nevermind

 

In order for this constantly repeated, bogus argument to work, you have to believe that there is only one way to "confront" Iraq. There isn't. They were for confronting Saddam. They supported doing it one way (the way Bush promised he would before he flip flopped and reneged on that promise) and they opposed the way it was done. It's really not that complicated.

 

Basso then why didn't you respond when I asked for distortions from the Kerry/Edwards campaign towards the Bush campaign. No Worries provided a couple from the debate last night, which I commented on. I think Kerry mentioned the 200 Billion figure before also.

The Bush campaign has been caught distortion John Kerry flip flopping on Iraq, voting for tax increases, trying to raise taxes, John Kerry voting to cut intel spending, voting to cut weapons systems, the 87 billion to support the troops, saying that his vote to authorize was a vote to go to war, etc.

It's fine if you think that kerry/Edwards distorted the Bush/Cheney record. Please show me how it was done, and when.

 

Bush had a deadline... the U.S. military can't stay parked in Saudia Arabia forever
Once he decided to pressure (which only the U.S. was willing to do- Russia and France etc were quite happy with the santions that did nothing but line their pockets) Saddam, he had to either "go or no go" and pull out

I do believe that in making his case for war, the Admin made inflamitory statements which were either on their face, not true or mearly stretching the truth as they knew it

If you guys remember Desert Storm, we pounded them from the air for 6 weeks before moving in on the ground. This time it was almost simultanous and spectacular in it's execution. If you're going to bash the Admin for their failures in Iraq, you should also give them credit for an assault the likes of which the world has never seen. I ASSURE you that other countries took note of this and is carefully considering if it is worth it to support terrorists.

Afganistan is another story entirely, there is no question in my mind that more troops were needed, that the special forces that were used did not have CAS as per usual and that many of our very best soldiers died that didn't have to.

Note to that Dem who was yelling at the RNC, Zimmer or whatever his name was. If you are going to accuse one party of not funding the U.S. military, you should show how you do so much better. I can't stand seeing photo after photo of Humvee's blown to bits by cheap RPG's, grenades, homemade bombs and the like. Your answer is the Stryker? (available in very limited numbers) LOVE the rubber tires guys.
The U.S. Army has more mobile, cheaper equipment (thousands of mothballed Gavins) all while providing greater protection... and yet they sit and collect dust

sorry for this slightly off topic rant, and any resembalence it bares to a crazy man arguing with himself