« Debate One: Immediate Reaction |
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Tue., October 5, 2004
Bam! The vice-presidential debate! Like the first presidential debate, I don’t think this one is going to swing anyone. If you liked Cheney or Edwards before, you still like him.
- As MSNBC put it, “impressive, but misleading, remarks.”
- Edwards looked young. Too young. And acted young, too, with his eyebrow wag at the beginning of the debate and his whole “Did you figure out you were wrong?” exchange with Gwen at the end. He needs start channeling some of that patented Clintonesque suaveness everyone can appreciate. No one likes the mannerisms of a smarmy lawyer.
- Cheney stayed calm and rational but had some difficulty suppressing that Cheshire smirk that makes you want to smack him upside the head. And maybe a two-by-four would help with that lolling posture. Also, I can’t decide if it was wise of him to waive those follow-up answers.
- Best unanswered question: What will your administration do to remedy current poverty and jobless rates? Cheney: the No Child Left Behind Act! Edwards: look at all those jobs lost under the Bush administration! If I’m poor and/or jobless, I’m having trouble seeing how either answer does me a lick of good.
- Runner-up best unanswered question: Kerry/Edwards support internationalizing the US effort to exit Iraq, but France and Germany have already committed to not supply any troops; isn’t that naive? Edwards: talks about what the US itself will do to exit Iraq.
- You’re voting for Bush/Cheney because you’ll be safer from terror? You’re an idiot. Do yourself a favor and read Gene Weingarten’s excellent Washington Post article about learning to live in the new age of terrorism. Your president can’t do a damn thing about it....except institute color-coded terror alerts. For that matter, read security technologist Bruce Schneier’s recent article about the “dangerous game” the current administration has played with such alerts.
- Although I wasn’t as fired up as some of the flaming Republicans who called-in after the debate to deride Edwards (“How dare he!”) for mentioning Cheney’s lesbian daughter, I really don’t know why it was brought up to begin with. It was a bad bit of free-association on Edwards’ part: it was like he heard “constitutional ban on same-sex unions” and thought, hey, Cheney’s daughter is gay, I’ll mention that. Oh, the humanity.
- And as for Cheney supporting such an amendment: please stop threatening to fuck with the Constitution. Remember when flag burning was the hot-button Republican issue for a Constitutional amendment? Yeah, neither do I.
- Finally, I was happy to see that, unlike in the first presidential debate, Edwards’ and Cheney’s water receptacles seemed identical, although they were blue coffee mugs for some reason. Maybe it’s a Cleveland thing.
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Yes. Cleveland rocks.