Pirate's Cove

My final thoughts on the debate: Cheney killed Senator Gone on foreign issues, and beat him 6-4 on the domestic issues. I do not adhere to what many of the talking heads are saying, that Edwards won on the domestic stuff. Edwards gave the talking points, but it wasn’t flowing. Cheney was gruff and level headed.

When it came to the lawyers and medical questions, who thinks that Edwards can all of a sudden change his spots? The biggest thing I remember is that Cheney was given an opportunity to destroy Edwards, and, even with moderator prompting, Cheney stayed Vice Presidential and didn’t. He was careful with his words. Good for him.

Some additions, mid morning.

Perusing the News and Observer, seeing what the home town paper of Edwards is saying (411: Raleigh is the capital of NC, N&O is the Raleigh paper). They have done a pretty good job on being impartial, giving both men some good press.

A couple good zingers from Cheney:

CHENEY: “We need to battle them overseas so we don’t have to battle them here at home.”
CHENEY: “If they couldn’t stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can they stand up to al-Qaeda?” (On Kerry’s and Edwards’ votes before the Democratic primaries on a bill to finance the war.)
CHENEY: “I think the record speaks for itself. These are two individuals who have been for the war when the headlines were good and against it when their poll ratings were bad.”
CHENEY: “There has to be an interlocutor you can respect.” (Interlocutor: A person taking part in a conversation or dialogue.)
CHENEY: “The reason they keep trying to attack Halliburton is because they want to obscure their own record. Senator, frankly you have a record in the Senate that is not very distinguished. You have missed 33 of 36 meetings of the Judiciary Committee. Almost 70 percent of the meetings of the Senate Intelligence Committee. You missed a lot of key votes on tax policy, on energy, on Medicare reform. …