Number Twos try harder
It wasn't the kind of line Sen. Lloyd Bentsen used on Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debate, but it was close. In Tuesday night's debate, Vice President Dick Cheney seriously damaged Sen. John Edwards' moral claim on issues - from the war in Iraq, to health care - when he observed that Edwards' record in the Senate was ''not very distinguished.'' Cheney said Edwards had ''missed 33 out of 36 meetings in the Judiciary Committee, almost 70 percent of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee. You've missed a lot of key votes on tax policy, on energy, on Medicare reform. Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you 'Senator Gone.' You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.''
And then there was this devastating line from the Vice President: ''In my capacity as Vice President, I am the president of the 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.''
This is the way real debaters deconstruct the credibility of their opponents. The Vice President also injected a subject that was missing from the first presidential debate: the Senate record of Kerry and Edwards. Cheney said to Edwards, ''Your rhetoric, senator, would be a lot more credible if there was a record to back it up. There isn't.'' That's the way debates are won and Cheney won this one. Big time.
It wasn't the kind of line Sen. Lloyd Bentsen used on Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debate, but it was close. In Tuesday night's debate, Vice President Dick Cheney seriously damaged Sen. John Edwards' moral claim on issues - from the war in Iraq, to health care - when he observed that Edwards' record in the Senate was ''not very distinguished.'' Cheney said Edwards had ''missed 33 out of 36 meetings in the Judiciary Committee, almost 70 percent of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee. You've missed a lot of key votes on tax policy, on energy, on Medicare reform. Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you 'Senator Gone.' You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.''
And then there was this devastating line from the Vice President: ''In my capacity as Vice President, I am the president of the 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.''
This is the way real debaters deconstruct the credibility of their opponents. The Vice President also injected a subject that was missing from the first presidential debate: the Senate record of Kerry and Edwards. Cheney said to Edwards, ''Your rhetoric, senator, would be a lot more credible if there was a record to back it up. There isn't.'' That's the way debates are won and Cheney won this one. Big time.
