Nothing But Words

Even though I’m a Kerry supporter, I nonetheless have to tip my hat to Cheney and say he did a slightly better job overall than Edwards in this debate. Edwards was good, and he accomplished one of his most important missions, which was to demonstrate he’s of Presidential timber. He also did well in challenging the Bush administration’s rosy assesment of the Iraq situation. But he did not accomplish his other key mission: to effectively rebut Cheney’s (baseless) attacks on Kerry’s consistency and credibility as a leader. For example, he missed a wide open opportunity to finally debunk the oft-repeated “I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it” charge. Here’s what he could have said – this is me making up words for Edwards here:

“John Kerry made that statement after many long hours on the campaign trail. Here’s what he was talking about, and here’s what the facts are: John Kerry co-sponsored a bill that would have paid for the troops’ ammunition, supplies, and body armor by reducing the size of the tax cuts for those making over $312,000. But George Bush refused to go along with it – he threatened to veto any bill from the Senate that wasn’t put together exactly the way he wanted it. He chose to fund it by running up the deficit even more. He chose to burden our children with the cost. During World War II, Roosevelt asked not just our soldiers, but all Americans to make sacrifices to win the war. To fund the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the war, Truman rallied the nation and again asked us to make sacrifices for the sake of our European allies. But in this war, George Bush’s message to the wealthiest among us is ‘you will pay no price, you will bear no burden.’* It’s just stunning to me that you would attack John Kerry for trying to fund this war in a fiscally responsible manner while you insisted on taking the politically expedient route of running up the deficit instead.” Here’s my source on the bill Kerry co-sponsored.

* I stole this line from columnist Mark Shields.

Cheney was very good at running through the Republican talking points that tear into Kerry’s leadership credentials, and Edwards did not counter them effectively. I think Edwards won the second half of the debate, which focused on domestic issues. But his performance wasn’t quite what it could have been, primarily because he was hamstrung by Gwen Ifill’s incredibily lame set of domestic policy questions. Her poor questions also caused the debate to fizzle in the second half, further limiting Edwards’ impact.

Aside from one question on jobs and one question on taxes and the deficit, she neglected almost all of the vital domestic policy issues: education, health care, the overall economy, trade, prescription drugs, and the environment. Did we really need two questions on trial lawyers? I can see having one question on same sex unions, but did we need two? Did we really need a question about the differences between Edwards and Cheney, after we already had the “experience” question? And why did she offer the opportunity for 1-minute followups after almost every single question? These follow-ups were supposed to be at the moderator’s discretion, presumably to be used only if there was a crucial point that needed to be further explored. But she offered them routinely, which resulted in a lot of unnecessary meandering in the second half of the debate, and caused the debate to run long.

A lot of the post-debate buzz has centered on Cheney’s sins of commission: saying he never met Edwards before, when he actually had, and denying he ever claimed there was an Iraqi link to 9/11, when he actually had. What’s equally interesting to me were his sins of omission: his answer to the “jobs” question was mostly about education (considering this is a top issue for many voters, it’s stunning he didn’t have an on-topic response, and Edwards nailed him on it), and he refused to go to bat for Bush’s proposal for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (but in the end I doubt that’ll really hurt Bush with the social conservatives).

Edwards also missed an opportunity to expose Cheney for what he is. While he did run through some of Cheney’s crazy votes when he was in the House (e.g. not supporting a ban on plastic guns that can get through airport metal detectors, voting against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela, etc.), he failed to connect it to the “values” theme. Remember not too long ago when this campaign was supposedly about values? The Democrats could ask for no better out-of-the-mainstream, right-wing ideologue record to attack than Cheney’s, but Edwards didn’t drive home the point.

Lastly, Cheney’s historical comparison of El Salvador to Afghanistan was cooky. But I imagine he figured no one would bother to research it, and given the lack of any inquiry on this topic in the media, he guessed right. This is how the Library of Congress El Salvador Country Study summed up the situation a year after the 1982 elections (click The “Democratic Process” link for the full analysis – the quotation marks around “Democratic Process” are theirs, by the way).

Although it had initiated a democratic process of sorts, El Salvador was still volatile as 1983 approached. The FMLN-FDR [guerilla movement] had strengthened itself militarily and continued to press for a negotiated “power-sharing” agreement that would grant it a role in a revamped governmental structure. After its successful response to the poorly coordinated “final offensive,” the armed forces bogged down and seemed unwilling or unable to respond effectively to the guerrilla threat. Political violence continued at high levels. The increasing involvement of the United States prompted comparisons with the early days of the Vietnam conflict. The ambiguity of the Salvadoran situation from the American perspective was not improved by the conservative victory in the 1982 elections. As seen from both San Salvador and Washington, the future for El Salvador appeared uncertain at best.