Was Edwards taking it for the home team?

[SeekingTruth]

Does anyone else think Edwards was taking body blows for the benefit of the ticket?

Some of the things Edwards did not respond to really surprised me. For example, the Cheney claim of not meeting Edwards seems to me, not to be something Edwards would have forgotten.

Also, Edwards did not remark when Cheney said he had never led anyone to believe there was a connection between Hussein/Iraq/Al Queda/Bin Laden. Anyone who follows politics just a bit should recall any of a number of times Cheney has linked these items.

There were others, but right now I can't think of them and wonder if K/E was setting up the Dick and Bush. Especially after seeing that new DNC ad.

Thoughts?

[rooboy]

1. So Edwards was supposed to spend his time saying "did too!!" ?? n/t

[SeekingTruth]

3. No, what I'm wondering...

is why didn't Edwards run down a laundry list of the times of when Dick Cheney did say that Iraq/Hussein was linked to bin Laden/Al Queda/9/11. Recall that Cheney has said numerous times that M. Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague, when that has been disproven.

I'm just hoping that the Dems are so good, that they let this stuff go so they could come back and beat them over the head with it later for greater affect.

[AngryLizard]

5. I honestly thought Edwards let that one fly because

1. He knew the media was going to nail Cheney to the far wall on that one. The media is all about the soundbites and the pictures, which would be more effective than Edwards taking up precious rebuttal time going, "hey, asshole, we've met several times before this."

2. Cheney took his gloves off on that one, which gave Edwards the opportunity to take his off. That shot about Cheney voting against head start, MLK day and Nelson Mandela was SWEET.

Cheney's lies were just so unnecessary. The pot shots for the sake of landing blows, but so easily proved as lies. And that one about not meeting Edwards just made the media look at what else he's lied about.

Edwards missteps are nothing in comparison. Edwards "forgot" about the deaths of uninformed iraqis. Right, but he was talking about coalition deaths. Edwards said $200 billion when it's really $120 billion. Uh,yeah. $120 billion is totally fine, then.

[progdonkey]

14. ...

I think you mean "uniformed." ;-) Unless, of course, it was a Freudian slip....

[speedoo]

2. Based on the way the media is reporting Cheney's various lies,

I would say Edwards was just giving Cheney the rope to hang himself with.

It would have been a colossal waste to have a man as talented as Edwards in debating "take one for the team".

[Fed Up]

4. Cheney's statement was a set up. Edwards was supposed to say

"What are you talking about? We met a few times?"

Then Cheney could give it to him, "Maybe you're right, I guess you just didn't make that big an impression on me."


Good thing Edwards didn't refute it.

[Ruffhowse]

6. My thoughts exactly, I bet Edwards deftly dodged this one with a quick

analysis of the likely comeback by Cheney. He knew the media would pick it up later and run with it.

[flordehinojos]

7. which basically, isn't that what Cheney did when Elizabeth Edwards

reminded him that he and Edwards sat together on a Prayer Breakfast.
Wasn't Cheney's reported, "Oh, Yeah", simply just a dismissal, or a discounting of the Edwards's?

[speedoo]

8. Check out this new DNC ad.

http://www.democrats.org/

I think we will get a ton of mileage out of this ad, far more than even Edwards could have gotten with a brilliant response.

[kanrok]

16. THAT was a powerful commercial

kudos to the DNC on that one.

[0rganism]

9. Why fight lies when the record will expose them for you?

Cheney said a number of things that were transparent fictions, and Edwards picked the ones he argued against carefully. For instance, the "I didn't meet you until today" thing was easily and thoroughly debunked by the media without any help from Edwards. The "I never said Saddam was connected to Al Qaida" is just as easily put to the lie. But if he'd engaged in "You're lying"-"No, you're lying" exchanges with Cheney, he would have been caste as petulant, whiney, disrespectful or contradictory.

He sat back, made his points, took a few sharp jabs at Cheney, let the media follow up on the most obvious untruths, and smiled the whole time. Not a bad strategy.

[sendero]

15. This is a very popular theory here...

... (that Edwards picked and chose which lies to out because he knew the media would take over) but I don't buy it for a second.

If the media gave a rat's ass about the lies of the Bush administration they would have gone down long ago.

I'm going with Occam's razor here, the simple explanation is the best. Edwards just had too much shit flying his way to deal with all of it, and while there were several opportunities missed he did well enough.

[mumon]

17. YES, BECAUSE if it were ONLY at the debate...

Joe Republican or Mary Undecided would say, "Well, it's a case of 'He said, she said.'" OK, maybe not, but they'd say something similar: "Wel, it's one guy's word against another, so who you gonna believe?"

Whereas, by putting Cheney's obvious shit-train of lies right out there for all Americans to see & hear (I wish they'd mention his Senate attendance though)...it hits voters over the head: this piece of s*it will tell you anything, and think's you're a damned idiot.

[auburngrad82]

10. Those were so easily debunked that it would have been a waste of time

for Edwards to respond. The press did the work for him after the debate when they started carrying stories about how Cheney wasn't honest in his statements.

By ignoring the blatant and obvious lies Edwards could hit Cheney where he needed to hit him- on the economy and on Iraq.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

11. The Republican Strategy...

Assuming that the lapdog media wouldn't report on Cheney's lies, the Republicans likely planned those statements in advance, trying to goad Edwards into a "he said/she said" type of discussion. Cheney could dismiss any argument from Edwards as "not having your facts straight," and in the meantime, Edwards never gets the Kerry/Edwards message out.

I was disappointed in Edwards at the time, wishing he'd gone after the raw meat (i.e., lies) the Cheney was serving up. In retrospect, however, I think the Edwards showed a remarkable degree of discipline by staying on message and not allowing himself to be lead into the swamp.

[Pepperbelly]

12. J.E.'s job was to defend the ticket ...

not serve his own ego. And he did it with discipline and enthusiasm. Good for John Edwards. He is a man of character.

[CityHall]

13. Brilliant job

I think the good guys are doing a brilliant job in the debates, and I say that as someone who at first felt that Cheney had walked away with the foreign policy section. My realization is that our side has been playing this thing for perceptions, and doesn't care one bit what policy wonks think about the dryer points.

The one misstep so far has been the "global test" sound bite we gave them. But Bush looked like an idiot, he was baited into the "forgot Poland" point which makes the coalition sound especially weak. Thenn there was the "I don't think he mislead..." stuff; what were they thinking with that line?

And Edwards set up the negative stuff about Cheney's record perfectly, baiting him to go negative first. The veep had no answer on Haliburton, and didn't even try to defend the Mandela vote. Now we should also hit him on the AIDS comment that there isn't anyone to do the productive work of the economy, and that he wanted to drop sanctions so Haliburton could do more business -- a repeat of Prescott Bush and G.H. Walker's dealings with Germany in the 30's.

At least Cheney had the sense not to attack Edwards on the merits of the cases he'd won. That would have been memorable mistake, and one Bush would have blundered into, I'm afraid.

[mac56]

18. Another poster yesterday -

stated that Edwards didn't call Cheney out on his lies because as an experienced litigator he knows it's better to lock a person in on his "testimony" then to let him weasel out of it when you have him in a demonstrable lie. Then you hit them with the lie in front of the "jury", and their credibility is shot.

Now Kerry and Edwards have clean statements from Cheney, and they can run commercials showing Cheney saying one thing Tuesday, and something else long ago.

It took discipline, but Edwards held back and did the right thing.

[KharmaTrain]

19. Put Yourself In Edwards Place...

No matter how cool a customer you are, sitting in the glare of those lights, knowing millions are riding on each word and gesture you make (or don't make) and so much is riding on your overall performance, how would you act?

I could see the adreneline squirting out of Edwards' ears at the start of the debate, and he appears early-on to be too anxious to reply and get words out. To his credit, he throttled back and this is what I think is what you've picked up on. There was just too much going on, and imagine trying not only to focus on all of your very mannerisms, listen to one question while working on another. If you haven't been in a formal debate, try it sometime...don't be surprised if you blurt out things that later you'll regret.

Chenney's attack and lies were of a level none of us could have expected. His bombshell on no Iraq/9/11 connection had all of our jaws dropping...and certainly wasn't one Edwards had anticipated...best he let that one fly as this was so out of left field that was too good to be true to be hearing. This was an absolute 180...I get a feeling Edwards was more stunned and thus didn't react.

Regarding the absentee/gotcha zinger. This one Edwards should have seen coming. There's been attacks on both Kerry & Edwards attendence records for months, and when Crashcart made the whopper he did, that had to blow Edwards mind as the attack on his attendence came from out of nowhere. I'm sure Edwards was more expecting to be criticized on the votes he made rather than for the ones he didn't...conventional wisdom says this is how you tar a Democrat at being "liberal".

As some Freeper said, the RNC was hoping Edwards would lay down some fodder for more campaign ads. He didn't. And Cheney and this regime have grown accustomed to a puppy-dog media that will not check their lies...even if they're as blatant and slanderous as the ones Chenney attempted to destroy Edwards with.

The great thing is Edwards kept his cool and didn't take Chenney's bait. Instead his silence got a few, like Russert & Tweety, on their horses as Chenney's Iraq/9/11 lie took a direct shot at their credibility, and the whomever let that "never met you before tonight" line go without proper vetting now has three new assholes with the names Dick, Karl & Karen on them.

Cheers!