Hm. I had not seen/heard John Edwards speak before. My assessment: that particular forum was not to his advantage. Oil Slick Dick looked pretty comfortable with it, though, and if not for the fact that he was lying, and I knew he was lying, and the fact that he'd gladly throw us all on the trash heap if it would funnel more money to Halliburton, I might think he was the better man for the job. Edwards did a good job of repeating the point that Bush/Cheney is all about helping big business while claiming Kerry/Edwards to be about helping average Americans, and I don't think Oil Slick Dick did much, if anything, to counter it. But why should he? He behaved very well, though. The only time he snarled was the first time Edwards hit at his relationship with Halliburton and Halliburton's shady deals. He really did want to say, "Go fuck yourself". I could tell. But he managed to get control of himself and move on after he ripped Edwards for not showing up at Senate votes. ("Your hometown paper has taken to calling you Senator Gone.") Edwards made me want to take away his coffee mug. And he has a rather irritating blinky-eyed pursed-lip puss that he put on way too often. I had to close my eyes and just listen. I know he hasn't had much practice, so I'll cut him some slack. But somebody needs to help him with his television presence. After all, it's all about appearances.
I'll post you a link to the transcript when one comes available. Friday night the two head asses will pretend to take questions from real people in St. Louis. All questions pre-approved, so don't expect much.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
Update10/06 8:00 am: From the blogs...
Bob
saw it differently from me. He thinks Edwards was on top of it (but disliked the pro-Israel stance). Digby says Edwards was excellent. Zeynep at Under the Same Sun says "Edwards follows the 'run to the right of Bush/Cheney' strategy.", which is true in many cases, and very disappointing. Josh Marshall says "Edwards didn't strike a false note," but allowed that didn't mean "he was the best debater ever or that it was a bravura performance." And, The Poor Man has another look at Edwards that I must admit I saw but didn't interpret quite the same way...
Edwards is such a cheese. Turning and flashing a shit-eating grin when introduced. he practically flipped his hair in slow motion.
...and, made a great catch (among other good points):
The Poor Man also has a pretty good running commentary from the debate, if you decide not to read the entire transcript.
A reader (Hey, there, DJ. Thanks for coming by.) coments that Edwards' blinking was bothersome. I think for me it was especially distracting because of an ex who used to blink like that when feeling defensive and arrogant at the same time. It was also a quirk that Bush Baby had just been tagged for in his "debate" a few days ago.
Bush was stumbling through his sentences. He lips were pursed. He was beginning to blink hard. --
Washington DispatchAt one point he began to blink rapidly, an image caught by the cameras. Democrats should turn that image into an advertisement. --
Arab NewsThat article says Bush's problem is not a mixed message, but his fixed message. No kiddding.
And I keep wondering why both he and Cheney insist on repeating the phrase "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" to put Kerry in a negataive light. They should definitely not use that phrasing over and over and over. Because when you do that, just as they are trying to do when they repeat their short phrase mantras, that's what sticks in people's heads. But, of course, it's fine with me.
Confronted with a debate challenge from John Kerry, President Bush blinked. And blinked, and blinked, and blinked, and blinked.....But frustration isn't the only thing Gerard Nierenberg, author of "How to Read a Person Like a Book," saw. "When someone is not sure of the truth, their eyes blink rapidly," he said....Bush's eyes didn't betray him until the end of the debate, said Joseph Tecce, a psychology professor at Boston College who taped the debate and then counted the blinks....."Normally, excessive blinking is a sign of discomfort," said Barbara Laskin of Laskin Media, a Manhattan communications training and consulting firm. --
New York Daily NewsYes. Either Edwards' contacts were bothering him, or the situation was. Does he wear contacts? Maybe his eyes were dry. Lord knows his mouth was. He kept sipping on that damned cup and sticking his tongue between his lips. He really did look green. Not that green is bad. As he said, a long resumé doesn't mean you have good judgment. But, this is not an electorate who votes with its brain. Unfortunately.
The fellow I was talking to yesterday, who said Bush pauses because he's trying to avoid cussing, is a smart guy. He is a co-creator of the computer software InfoCAD, which he helped design while working at Los Alamos laboratories for security, to give them the ability to instantaneously determine where anyone and anything was located and to track the possible movement of leaking chemicals and other breaches. When he said we should just leave other countries to their own violent internal destruction, I suggested that the CIA was sitrring those pots, and he said, "Oh, I don't know anything about that, and I don't care. We give those countries millions of dollars, and they..." Well, you know the rest. You've heard it. As The Poor Man posts:
Informed citizenry is the bulwark of a democracyAccording to some CNN bobblehead [via Atrios], a new Gallup poll shows that 62% of Republicans surveyed believe that "Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was DIRECTLY involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001". Where would they ever get that idea? Whatever a "bulwark" is, I hope it's not something critical, or else we're pretty fucked.
Oh, indeed we are, PM. Indeed we are.
...and hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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