James Ridgeway (Village Voice) thinks Cheney won. WTF!!!

[skypilot]

Maybe I don't read the Village Voice enough but I'd always thought that Ridgeway leaned more left. Maybe I was wrong because otherwise I can't fathom this:

Dick Cheney was every inch the president so many accuse him of being in Tuesday night's debate. Unlike the stumbling George Bush of last week's contest, the vice president turned aside John Edwards's attacks by simply saying the senator didn't know what he was talking about. Cheney hammered the Kerry-Edwards ticket as having a record of being inconsistent and duplicitous. He painted Edwards and John Kerry as having been AWOL for Senate votes, and as two insignificant con men not worth talking to or about.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0440/ridgeway2.php

[hlthe2b]

1. so did quite a few DUers (myself excepted!)

I think Cheney's monotone delivery of his nonstop lies hypnotized them!

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. The word "few" in your post header

being the operative word, I strongly suspect, hlthe2b.

Edward's detailed knowledge of all the facts in all the issues raised was more than masterful; it was awesome. The only exception, ironically, concerned his own attendance record in the Senate; but how could he have imagined even Cheney telling such an enormous whopper!

On the other hand, unsurprisingly (given their record in office, jointly and severally), he was forced to listen to Edwards trot out an amazingly impolitic record of antisocial votes cast on his part to the detriment of the poor, the oppressed and the most vulnerable. The last one, against meals-on-wheels turned incredulity into a sense of the wildest farce. As if he'd been determined to cast himself as the pantomime villain. Or the villainous squire with top hat and waxed moustache in the Victorian pot-boiler, Maria and the Red Barn or some such. Edwards must have been thinking, "Bring 'em on!"

[David Dunham]

2. Ridgeway is an idiot.

[skypilot]

3. Are we supposed to be impressed...

...that Cheney was dismissive and simply told Edwards that he didn't know what he was talking about? It that how debates are won? With dismissiveness? Ridgeway MUST be an idiot.

[guntherconcept]

4. Didn't he used to be in "Wham"?

Oh, I'm sorry, that was Andrew Ridgeley.

[Cocoa]

5. Ridgeway is a dem basher

bashes them from the left, and he does it phony. His critique of Kerry was identical to his critique of Gore. Total phony.

[Cha]

7. And this is what Tom Oliphant had to

say..

"Cheney proves his irrelevance"


Cheney went into office with the typical benefit of the doubt. Now, more people in polls express unfavorable views about him than favorable ones. As he showed last night, the only way he can deal with questions about his repeated misleading of the public on matters of war and peace is by ignoring the questions and launching into another effort to make Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda seem part of the same coalition and then questioning the patriotism of all who criticize him. It can seem like decent television, but in fact it undermines his president politically as much as it helps rally the Republican base.

John Edwards had the political discipline to resist the temptation to behave with Cheney's off-putting nastiness, restricting himself to one powerful recitation of the vice president's long record of extreme right-wing position on race relations and education. He helps John Kerry politically, but what was important last night was that he helped demonstrate that Cheney isn't a big player anymore, that Edwards can play on the same stage, and therefore that the country is free to change leaders next month.

More at..
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/debates/articles/2004/10/06/cheney_proves_his_irrelevance/

I like his view better!