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October 06, 2004
John Edwards
This post is in response to Mediocre Fred. It started out as a comment on his assessment of the VP debate, then it just grew to large...
I'd like to point out that while Frinklin is right leaning, I'm definitely left leaning, and I thought Cheney won. He appeared to be in command and took Edwards to task on several issues, despite blatantly lying more than once ("I've never alluded to a connection between Saddam Hussein and 911!" or some such load o' crap).
I may have been especially hard on Edwards because I want to like him. I'm begging to like him. But he has always struck me a smarmy, despite "fighting for the regular folks" as a trial attorney. I guess I wish he would really let go of those roots and do what America really needs when it comes to medical malpractice costs and leashing our litigious society--why can't it be "loser pay all" in the courts, including the attorney(ies) involved? That would stop most idiotic lawsuits immediately, including unnecessary malpractice lawsuits, which would help bring medical costs down...
I have to say, I heard much of the debate replayed on the radio this morning and it sounded much better than it looked. Maybe I am like most people and don't actually listen to what is said, but how it's said, and what the speaker is wearing/doing/expressing with his facial muscles while saying it. I take back (a little) what I wrote in my previous post about John Edwards. He can continue to speak.
Both sides seemed to do a "Well, he's brought that up (whatever "that may be), but look how bad he sucks!" instead of actually addressing the issues. Regular political BS.
And if John Edwards folds his hands together one more time and tells me he's going to "speak honestly with the American people..." Lordy, that's annoying.
And Fred, I totally agree with you on Gwen. She wasn't all that great as a moderator. She had an odd rapport with Dick Cheney, I felt, and didn't seem to have that with John Edwards. I probably wouldn't have wanted to question Edwards either. He seemed a bit on edge with his "I do?! Are you sure?? OK!!" and leaping out of his chair afterwards.
That would be my disjointed and largely incomplete assessment of the debates as I saw them.
Posted by Ensie at October 6, 2004 07:12 PM
Comments
The interesting thing is that, though I'm a Kerry man, I've liked Cheney's debating style previously and I never really cared for Edwards. So if anything, I was naturally disposed to give the edge to Cheney. But it looked like a tie to me.
The hand-folding thing that Edwards does bugs me too. Trying to decide between that patently insincere Sunday-school-hand-tent and Cheney's ability to spout blatant falsehoods without any visible change in expression... tough call. It's a toss-up for me.
I noticed Gwen's rapport with Cheney too. It's odd, since Edwards was polite to her, and Cheney treated her like a cardboard prop, for the most part.
Posted by: Mediocre Fred at October 6, 2004 07:58 PM
"I've never alluded to a connection between Saddam Hussein and 911!"
Well, he hasn't. No one in the administration has ever suggested such a thing. We've heard Democrats suggesting that Republicans have suggested it, but you won’t be able to find a single quote from an administration official linking Saddam with 9/11. I challenge you...
Posted by: Richard at October 6, 2004 11:34 PM
OK Richard, you are right. I couldn't find a direct quote that Cheney connected the two. However, he has alluded to it continuously along with other White House staff, and has always stated that Saddam has had ties to al-Queida, insinuating that he had something to do with 911.
Read this:
"NEW YORK (September 10, 2004) -- The latest Newsweek poll, released this week, revealed that 42% of Americans continue to believe that Saddam Hussein's regime was "directly involved" in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States."
It seems to matter little that every official federal probe, most recently the much-lauded 9/11 Commission, has debunked this myth, in high-profile reports. Yet the percentage of Americans clinging to the Iraq connection has declined only slightly in the past year.
"...another poll that suggested that Americans remain "woefully uniformed or misinformed about certain key issues relating to the war." One survey result: 35% still believe that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD when the U.S. invaded."
Stuff like this drives me crazy. Obviously people are getting the idea from somewhere.
Posted by: ensie at October 7, 2004 06:18 PM
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