Send in the vice presidents

flogen

FatherTed wrote:

While I agree with almost everything that you said, if say...Gore was president or even Kerry for that matter, the Saddam and Iraq issue would not even have been discussed in 2003/2003. Things would have been rolling merrily along with the UN sanctions in and Saddam rebuffing the weapons inspectors. However, it was Bush who pushed the issue. Not the UN or anyone else. And we all know what would have happened. Absolutely nothing. Because the UN is as effective as using nail clippers for cutting a hundred acres of grass. So once Bush pushed the issue and more or less bypassed the UN, there were two options. You were either with him or agin' him. For all of Kerry's and Edwards' rhetoric now, they were with him by the mere fact that they did voice their opposition then.

Well thats all debatable, really. Who knows how Kerry or Gore would have handled it? The fact is that todays report says that Saddam had no weapons, but that he was looking to get them as soon as possible. Now the UN kept coming back saying "there are no weapons", and the US wouldn't buy it, now the US are saying the same. The spin now is "he was a threat because he wanted to get weapons", but the fact is from the findings that he had no chance to get them while under sanction, at least up until 2003 anyway. So the UN was working, it may have needed some tweaking, but it was working.

The reason why the UN is seen as useless is because the US use it when they want and ignore it when they want. They (and others) are also guilty of using vetos for personal reasons rather than rational reasons, Israel being the perfect US example.

Now, Kerry was with Bush going with the intelligence that Bush had, and only if They used force as a last resort (which they didnt) and only if they had a real plan to win in Iraq, and win the peace (which they didnt).
Kerry and Edwards can now say "we voted for the war because we believed a,b and c to be true like you, but most importantly because you said you would do what you could for peace, and do what you could to save Iraqi and US life, and you lied".

flogen

ColoradoGal

First of all, this seemed more like a Sunday morning news show than a real debate. For even a political junkie like myself, I got bored about half way through it. Edwards should have said that since Cheney wants to be so tough, why wouldn't he take this meeting like a man - standing up!

I thought it was basically a draw, where they both probably appealed well to their bases. Cheney was impressive to Bush's Scared, Angry White Man base and Edwards did better with women, independent and undecideds. I thought that Edwards jumped around a bit too much by during his allotted time - it seemed rather unorganized.

As a woman, I thought Edwards did better in that he spoke more clearly and kept trying to emphasize the domestic issues, like Jobs, education and health care. Cheney seemed to refuse to talk about jobs! Also, stylistically, Edwards being far more personable, and speaking clearly and loudly - not like this was just a little chat with a personal sunday morning interviewer. Cheney talked so low and softly, I sometimes felt like I was listening in on someone else's conversation. in every regards, Cheney was simply not talking to me.

The sitdown format, as suspected was snoozervile. The clear loser in this debate was the interviewer, Gwen. I usually like her on PBS. But she asked odd questions, and got confused a few times. The only person who was really not "on the ball" was Gwen! gees!

Actually, now that I think about it, the real loser in this debate was Cheney's rarely-mentioned "boss", President Bush.

AngelofFire

I thought that John Edwards was very good, he came across very well. he really stuck it to cheney when he criticised his lack of support for Nelson Mandela and for a Martin Luther King day. Cheneys arguments were mainly based on sleeze and personal attacks.

ColoradoGal

Yes, Angel, I thought that was definitely a zinger!

“When [Cheney] was one of 435 members of the United States House, he was one of 10 to vote against Head Start, one of four to vote against banning plastic weapons that can pass through metal detectors. He voted against the Department of Education. He voted against funding for Meals on Wheels for seniors. He voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa."

flogen

ColoradoGal wrote:

Yes, Angel, I thought that was definitely a zinger!

“When [Cheney] was one of 435 members of the United States House, he was one of 10 to vote against Head Start, one of four to vote against banning plastic weapons that can pass through metal detectors. He voted against the Department of Education. He voted against funding for Meals on Wheels for seniors. He voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa."

Just remembering a zinger by Edwards... If someone can tidy it up I'd be grateful... Basically Cheney said that Kerry had voted for some bill or another (which was a bad thing), and Edwards said "yeah, that bill, you were one of its main backers". or something to that effect, was class anyway just shows the attempted mudslinging that goes on!

flogen

flogen

Just as for your information, the polls seem to have swung back in favour of Cheney. (all taken from www.electoral-vote.com). One survey found Cheney to win in 8 states, and Edwards to win in 5. Cheney destroyed Edwards in cities too 17 to 4.

However, the polls have swung back for Kerry, with him now only 9 votes behind Bush. Lets hope tomorrows debate will be another victory, and Tuesdays wont factor (not that they usually do).

flogen

RE*AC*TOR

There's definetly more of a chance for Kerry to do well 2moro. Well, in realtiy its more likely to be Bush who'll fúck-up. Thankfully Edwards has no more debates. The whole not turning up for senate meeting was quite an insightful blow, the only reason he did anyway decently in the polls is because a lot of people have Cheney pegged as a liar and the spawn of satan (somewhat justifiably).
For a while, I was wondering if it would've been better with Edwards running for the no.1 spot, my conclusion is thankfully... no!

*edit* speaking of spawn of satan - this is my 666th post! Weird!

Hobbes

Jimeatsmenu wrote:

Apperently the url Chaney gave out for some of his figures (can't remember it off the top of my head) should have been www.dontbanmeh!!!.org, but he gave it as .com. So some democrats promptly bought the .com address and set it up as an anti Bush site.

[edit]stupid auto url tags[/edit]

Actually it was factcheck.org but he gave it as .com. Which was actually owned by advertising spammers, who then redirected it to georgesoros.com (much to Soros surprise).

sceptre

Hobbes wrote:

(much to Soros surprise).

He's got a bit about it in his blog

Mind you, he's got this featured on and linked from the index page which must really rile some people. Cheney will check his TLDs next time.

Explanation behind the redirect here

And factcheck.org isn't currently working in any case. Maybe Cheney should have sent us here where I hear you can buy army buttons for a tenner each, gas direct from the refinery for 50 bucks a pint if you're in Kuwait and frozen food with a nice fat markup. At least the Halliburton site's working.

FatherTed

For a summary of the debates, click on The Daily Show Headline here:

http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/

RE*AC*TOR

FatherTed wrote:

For a summary of the debates, click on The Daily Show Headline here:

http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/

that's some funny shít.

What's even funnier is that they essential rebuked Cheney claims of Edward's truency, with a video of the 2 men together in 2001.

FatherTed

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

that's some funny shít.

What's even funnier is that they essential rebuked Cheney claims of Edward's truency, with a video of the 2 men together in 2001.

The Daily Show is on monday-Fridays at 11pm and it's the only show I hate to miss. Has a laugh at politicians, news of the day stuff and news media. Go check out the other Daily Show on the comedy central website.

Sand

Im honestly surprised Cheney even showed up. Id have thought hed have been too busy strangling Rumsfeld and Bremner - fair play to them for stating their opinions but theyve single handly hauled a rather bland candidate back from the near certainty of defeat and handed them big sticks to beat Bush and Cheney with from here to election day. All they can hope for is that Kerry and co prove as inept as ever in exploiting big sticks and the whole thing blows over.

No clear winner but Cheney basically screwed himself royally playing the big man with loads of experience card and how he never saw Edwards around - given all the evidence of their previous meetings he made himself look extremely foolish. The line between experience and being old/over the hill is a fine one and betraying a faulty memory - no matter how human a flaw it can be - pushes Cheney closer to the scrap heap in any reasonable public perception. And anyway, experience doesnt mean anything if your lenthy CV is a litany of bad decisions and cock ups, and Cheney has quite a few of those - Edwards has the advantage of not having had quite enough time to earn as many black marks against his record.

Edwards didnt endear himself to me with his heartfelt congradulations to Cheney for being man enough to love his lesbian daughter whilst also being a Republican. Excellent political point as it tries to embarrass Cheney in front of the Reps Christian fundamentalist loonies, but a cheap shot exploiting a girl who probably doesnt need her own life being used as mud in a slagging contest. I think Cheney dealt with that as best he could, as telling Edwards to go f*ck himself wouldnt have been the wittiest counter ever.

All in all Edwards will be happiest I think, hes the politician more likely to kiss babies of the two, and hes shown he can live with Cheneys "gravitas".

therecklessone

Unseen footage of the vice-Presidential debate just released...