Category: John Edwards

Round 2: Draw.

Well, to my partisan eye, Dick Cheney proved time and time again in tonight’s sole veep debate that he’s not only an inveterate liar but a major-league asshole. (Yeah, big time.) Iraq (“It’s going great!”), Osama (“We never stopped going after him!”), the homefront (“Things are looking up!”), you name it…the guy just seems to have no compunction about dissembling flat-out to the American people. Said the veep early on, “The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11.” Really, Dick? How were we supposed to take Saddam “had long-established ties with Al Qaeda” then? Similarly, the audacity of Dick Cheney attacking John Kerry for voting against weapons systems he himself opposed is simply staggering.

From lies to misdirection. How did Cheney try to explain away Halliburton’s sweetheart no-bid Iraq contracts, and the subsequent looking askance at their egregious overbilling of the American people? “Um, John, I’ve never seen you around the Senate before.” (Not true, of course, but nice of Dick to send voters to the Soros-run FactCheck.com rather than FactCheck.org, though.) And, when Edwards skewered the veep with his own voting record from back in the day — no to Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and the Education Dept, no to MLK Day and to condemning apartheid(?!) — what was Cheney’s answer? “Oh, I think his record speaks for itself.” You’re damn right it does, as does yours.

All that being said, I thought Edwards missed a few chances to put the hurt on Cheney in the early going, and should have responded harder to the ridiculous “facing-up-to-Howard Dean” riff. And he didn’t really hit his stride until the domestic-policy-oriented second half, when less-interested swing voters out there had probably started tuning out. (Conversely, I thought Cheney self-destructed for awhile there, mumbling about No Child Left Behind in a question about jobs.) So, while my gut (and the insta-polling) say Edwards took this one, I’m guessing the numbers in the next few days will show a draw, if only because Cheney seemed at least somewhat cognizant of the world around him, unlike his running mate. Next stop: Friday.

The Voice of Reason.

Well, well, look who’s back. Kerry closes the gap over the weekend, setting the stage for this week’s debate double (Dubya?) dip (beginning tomorrow with Edwards v. Cheney.) Maybe now Dubya is finally beginning to realize: going mano-a-mano with Kerry is hard work.

The Bush B.S. Bounce.

Are you sitting down? Time Magazine is reporting that Dubya’s now up 11 on Kerry, 52%-41%. Phew, that’s ugly…but we are post-convention now, and, various October surprises notwithstanding, I really can’t see how Dubya goes anywhere but down. Plus, we already know both Kerry and Edwards are solid closers. Still, the GOP and their corporate cronies have gotten away with misrepresenting John Kerry for far too long. For the sake of our republic, it’s time to push these lying bastards back. Update: A new Newsweek poll shows basically the same spread. Grr.

The Wages of Sin.

Kerry takes a sizable hit in the polls that extends to swing states, thanks largely to the Swift lies still being bandied about as news. Chris over at Do You Feel Loved ably summed up my thoughts on the controversy. I’m a cynical fellow relatively wise to “politics ain’t beanbag”-type shenanigans, but the sheer corruption of this whole GOP enterprise is somewhat staggering. What we have going on here is akin to the Kerry campaign funding a spate of backdoor ads declaring Dubya a serial wife-beater, and having the national news media ponder the charges despite all evidence to the contrary. Wait…is there evidence to the contrary? Did I mention I saw Dubya swing madly at Laura while he was on a three-day drunk in 1978? Well, yes, I was only four in 1978, but why should that matter? Dubya’s a wife-beater.

SDI, Schmesh-D-I.

Say what you will about the Dem ticket, but at least they understand the importance of protecting our precious bodily fluids from terrorist and Communist impurifications. This October, John Edwards will introduce Dr. Strangelove for Turner Classic Movies. (By way of Quiddity.) For the rest of the “Party Politics and the Movies” series, John McCain chose Paths of Glory, Joe Biden picked Dead Poets Society, and Orrin Hatch took To Kill a Mockingbird.

Landslide?

“The president — highly intelligent, personally flawed, detested by many, a man who was first elected in a narrow three-way race and then reelected easily — had faced impeachment. In the following election, his vice president, a decent man with decades on Capitol Hill, was beaten by an inexperienced governor from the South. Four years passed. The economy weakened and oil prices soared. Crises in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan eroded our national confidence. Clearly the president was in trouble. Yet many were not comfortable with his opponent. Yes, he was effective on television. But was he a steady hand? Was he trustworthy? Would the country be safe in his hands? The year was, of course, 1980.” James K. Galbraith makes the case for a decisive Kerry-Edwards victory in November.

Follow the Bouncing Ball.

So did Kerry-Edwards get a post-convention bounce or not? Depends on how you spin it, it seems. I’m not too concerned, frankly…I think most people know how they’re going to vote at this point (including the Kerry Republicans.)

Hope is on the way.

Well, other than the over-the-top salute at the very beginning of his remarks, I’d say Kerry knocked it out of the park last night. It was definitely the best speech I’ve ever heard of him give, and one surprisingly full of red meat to lob back at the Bushies. As a result, Kerry seemed energetic and self-assured and, well, presidential throughout. All in all, I thought it a very impressive performance, and one that should help him a great deal in the time between now and the debates, bounce or no.

As for Edwards the night before, I actually thought his speech, despite the nice “Hope is on the Way” refrain, was a bit of a letdown after Obama’s rousing keynote. Edwards seemed to stumble a few times in the middle going, and I found the tone a bit too conversational to produce any really memorable turns of phrase. Still, any other year, I think the Senator’s speech would’ve been one of the highlights of the convention. The fact that it loses some luster when compared to those of Clinton, Obama, and Kerry speaks very highly of the overall quality of this year’s proceedings in Boston.

Speaking of which, I’d say the GOP will be extremely hard-pressed to match the Democrats’ unity, optimism, and energy in a month, particularly with the legions of embittered conservatives in attendance at the Garden. Well, even if they do muster up a fine three-ring circus at the end of August, John Kerry, John Edwards, and the Democrats have proven this week they’re ready for the fight. So bring it on.

Onward, Christian Soldiers.

Speaking of Dubya and “shared values,” I neglected to post this earlier, so the links are kinda stale now. (Compounding my bad form, I also forgot where I saw them originally.) Nevertheless, much to the chagrin of many pastors and theologians, the Dubya campaign is leaning heavily on churchgoers to join an ecclesiastical voting army this November. “Even Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics and religious liberty commission and a prominent Bush supporter, recoiled at the idea of churches becoming directly involved in a political campaign. ‘I am appalled,’ Land said in a statement. ‘I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors’ fur the wrong way…It’s one thing for a church member motivated by exhortations to exercise his Christian citizenship to go out and decide to work on the Bush campaign or the Kerry campaign. It’s another, and totally inappropriate for a political campaign, to ask workers who may be church members to provide church member information through…directories.” Will Karl’s Crusade against Kerry-Edwards falter before it’s even begun?