How bizarre. I was just reading Andrew Sullivan’s assessment of the debate and he called it an “overwhelming a debate victory for Edwards”. Personally, I think Edwards missed a lot of opportunities and took a lot of punches. Why didn’t he talk about Cheney’s pre-war promise of troops being “greeted as liberators”? Or the Administration’s promises about the low cost of the war? Why didn’t he do a better job talking about the $87 billion? And why the hell did he spend so much time on Halliburton?

Earlier this afternoon, I wrote about 3/4 of a post about why I thought Edwards was might lose the debate. Among the points I made were that the format favors Dick Cheney (who’s really soft-spoken and direct) over Edwards (who’s at his best when he’s engaging a crowd). After tonight, I think that was pretty much the way things worked out. If this was a townhall-style debate, Edwards would have killed.

On the other hand, my post was also going to point out Cheney’s reputation for being the “red meat” Republican. My fear was that his directness could cut through Edwards’ charm and inexperience like a warm knife through butter. That prediction was, luckily, way off the mark. Edwards stumbled a bit in the foreign policy portions of the debate, but he held his own and hit back hard on domestic issues.

Cheney made some major mistakes that will come back and bite him in the ass. Number one, he completely failed on the gay marriage questions. It was such a massive stumble, I’ll reprint the relevant portions of the exchange :

IFILL: I want to read something you said four years ago at this very setting: “Freedom means freedom for everybody.” You said it again recently when you were asked about legalizing same-sex unions. And you used your family’s experience as a context for your remarks.

Can you describe then your administration’s support for a constitutional ban on same-sex unions?

CHENEY: Gwen, you’re right, four years ago in this debate, the subject came up. And I said then and I believe today that freedom does mean freedom for everybody. People ought to be free to choose any arrangement they want. It’s really no one else’s business.
. . .
And the fact is that the president felt that it was important to make it clear that that’s the wrong way to go, as far as he’s concerned.

Now, he sets the policy for this administration, and I support the president.

IFILL: Senator Edwards, 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: …as to this question, let me say first that I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can’t have anything but respect for the fact that they’re willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It’s a wonderful thing. And there are millions of parents like that who love their children, who want their children to be happy.

And I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and so does John Kerry.

I also believe that there should be partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples in long-term, committed relationships.

But we should not use the Constitution to divide this country.

No state for the last 200 years has ever had to recognize another state’s marriage.

This is using the Constitution as a political tool, and it’s wrong.

IFILL: New question, but same subject.

As the vice president mentioned, John Kerry comes from the state of Massachusetts, which has taken as big a step as any state in the union to legalize gay marriage. Yet both you and Senator Kerry say you oppose it.

Are you trying to have it both ways?

EDWARDS: No. I think we’ve both said the same thing all along.

We both believe that — and this goes onto the end of what I just talked about — we both believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.

But we also believe that gay and lesbians and gay and lesbian couples, those who have been in long-term relationships, deserve to be treated respectfully, they deserve to have benefits.

For example, a gay couple now has a very difficult time, one, visiting the other when they’re in the hospital, or, for example, if, heaven forbid, one of them were to pass away, they have trouble even arranging the funeral.

I mean, those are not the kind of things that John Kerry and I believe in. I suspect the vice president himself does not believe in that.
. . .
IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, let me simply thank the senator for the kind words he said about my family and our daughter.

I appreciate that very much.

IFILL: That’s it?

CHENEY: That’s it.

Let’s be clear here. This wasn’t just a chickenshit moment on Cheney’s part. It was truly heartbreaking.

While the transcript makes it look like Edwards mention of Cheney’s daughter was a cheap shot (and I’m sure that was a part of it), he delivered it with complete sincerity. And that’s how Cheney seemed to interpret it as well. As Edwards was talking about the love the Cheney’s have for their gay daughter, there was a subtlety to the look on Cheney’s face that was truly heartbreaking. I’ve watched it three times now and I gotta say, it looked as if this was the first moment in which the weight of his hypocrisy on this issue really weighed him down. For a brief moment, I actually felt sorry for the guy.

But he’s still a liar, so fuck him. There’s this relatively minor lie, which was in service of a rather substantial attack :

CHENEY: You’ve got one of the worst attendance records in the United States senate.

Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of senate, the presiding officer. I’m up in the senate most Tuesdays when they’re in session.

The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.

Ummmmm…bullshit.

Then there’s this major lie :

EDWARDS: Mr. Vice President, there is no connection between the attacks of September 11th and Saddam Hussein. The 9/11 Commission has said it. Your own secretary of state has said it. And you’ve gone around the country suggesting that there is some connection. There is not.

And in fact the CIA is now about to report that the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein is tenuous at best.

And, in fact, the secretary of defense said yesterday that he knows of no hard evidence of the connection.

We need to be straight with the American people.
[. . .]
CHENEY: The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11

In flipping through the channels, I’ve already seen a couple news organizations juxtapose this Cheney quote with one of the million times he tied Saddam to 9/11.

Edwards could have done a lot better tonight than he did, but I suspect he held his own enough to keep the momentum on Kerry’s side. Even if he got his ass kicked, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. As we saw with Cheney’s win over Lieberman in 2000, Stockdale stealing the show in 1992, or Lloyd Bensen’s devastation of Dan Quayle, the vice presidential debates really don’t mean much.