Wednesday, October 06, 2004
VEEP SHOTS
Let's call it a draw, shall we? The Bush team will probably benefit more from last night's VP debate as Cheney's professional, measured performance will help to stop the bleeding from W's horrific one from last week, but neither side came out a clear winner. There were no "shocker" moments, no Admiral Stockdale "where am I?" moments, so most people will probably forget about last night's tete-a-tete by the first pitch of tonight's Yankees/Twins game 2. I think there could have been some big moments, but Johnny Breck didn't go for the jugular on a lot of issues as I had hoped. Smiling is good John, but every once in a while against these guys, you gotta spit. To Cheney's credit, he did not eat any babies, so bully for him. A few more thoughts:
"I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11."
Um, excuse me? Dick opened with a whopper. But let's pretend for a minute that it isn't an outright lie. If what he's now saying is true, and Iraq and 9/11 had nothing to do with each other, explain to me again why we're in Iraq? And if he's never suggested it, I wonder how 40% of the population still believes it to be true. Weird huh?
Just the Facts
When Dick Cheney encouraged viewers to check the Web for the facts on his ties to Halliburton, he probably had know idea how big a difference three little letters can make. Because 30 seconds clearly isn't enough time to successfully distort and deflect the truth, he told viewers to take a look at "factcheck.com," a non-partisan website debunking mistruths from both sides of this fight. Unfortunately for Cheney, the actual address is factcheck.org. So where does factcheck.com take you? To none other than Bush-bashing billionaire George Soros' website of course. Oops.
That gay moment
After about a half-hour of volleying back and forth on very familiar issues related to Iraq and the war on terror, in which I believe Edwards held his own, gears shifted toward domestic issues. Perhaps the 'water cooler' moment from last night will turn out to be Edwards 'outing' of Cheney's daughter. Edwards praised the VP for loving and supporting his daughter, making sure to point out that "they have a gay daughter" in case a few hillbillys in North Carolina were still unaware. Dick deftly handled the awkward moment by simply thanking the senator and keeping his mouth shut. I guess credit should go to Cheney for not firing back, "well, you have a gay running mate!" It was a seemingly genial, almost tender moment between the two, but it was still weird and uncomfortable.
Tort Reform
Ok, I tried to pay attention here, but I was still too mesmerized by the homoerotic moment Dick and John had just shared to keep my focus.
Uniter? Divider?
Near the end of the debate, Dick said he doesn't know why the country is so divided. I'm not sure how he couldn't since he and his party are primarily responsible. Maybe Dick should think about how his party insists on putting forth completely unnecessary wedge issues like a consitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The only purpose of issues like that is to divide the electorate and solidify support from the far right. Dick said he doesn't know why the government is so divided. Maybe part of that stems from the fact that Cheney himself refuses to even meet with Democrats when he visits the Hill, (that's probably also the reason he claims to have never met Edwards before last night, another lie). Maybe its because in the rare moments he does "reach across the aisle," he does so with a "go fuck yourself." Cheney knows exactly why this country and this government is so divided and Edwards should've slammed him on it.
Leave 'em Trembling
Cheney didn't eat any babies, but he did manage to scare us one last time in his closing remarks:
Read the full transcript of the Veep Debate here.
Read Wonkette's much more entertaining liveblogging here.
Let's call it a draw, shall we? The Bush team will probably benefit more from last night's VP debate as Cheney's professional, measured performance will help to stop the bleeding from W's horrific one from last week, but neither side came out a clear winner. There were no "shocker" moments, no Admiral Stockdale "where am I?" moments, so most people will probably forget about last night's tete-a-tete by the first pitch of tonight's Yankees/Twins game 2. I think there could have been some big moments, but Johnny Breck didn't go for the jugular on a lot of issues as I had hoped. Smiling is good John, but every once in a while against these guys, you gotta spit. To Cheney's credit, he did not eat any babies, so bully for him. A few more thoughts:
"I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11."
Um, excuse me? Dick opened with a whopper. But let's pretend for a minute that it isn't an outright lie. If what he's now saying is true, and Iraq and 9/11 had nothing to do with each other, explain to me again why we're in Iraq? And if he's never suggested it, I wonder how 40% of the population still believes it to be true. Weird huh?
Just the Facts
When Dick Cheney encouraged viewers to check the Web for the facts on his ties to Halliburton, he probably had know idea how big a difference three little letters can make. Because 30 seconds clearly isn't enough time to successfully distort and deflect the truth, he told viewers to take a look at "factcheck.com," a non-partisan website debunking mistruths from both sides of this fight. Unfortunately for Cheney, the actual address is factcheck.org. So where does factcheck.com take you? To none other than Bush-bashing billionaire George Soros' website of course. Oops.
That gay moment
After about a half-hour of volleying back and forth on very familiar issues related to Iraq and the war on terror, in which I believe Edwards held his own, gears shifted toward domestic issues. Perhaps the 'water cooler' moment from last night will turn out to be Edwards 'outing' of Cheney's daughter. Edwards praised the VP for loving and supporting his daughter, making sure to point out that "they have a gay daughter" in case a few hillbillys in North Carolina were still unaware. Dick deftly handled the awkward moment by simply thanking the senator and keeping his mouth shut. I guess credit should go to Cheney for not firing back, "well, you have a gay running mate!" It was a seemingly genial, almost tender moment between the two, but it was still weird and uncomfortable.
Tort Reform
Ok, I tried to pay attention here, but I was still too mesmerized by the homoerotic moment Dick and John had just shared to keep my focus.
Uniter? Divider?
Near the end of the debate, Dick said he doesn't know why the country is so divided. I'm not sure how he couldn't since he and his party are primarily responsible. Maybe Dick should think about how his party insists on putting forth completely unnecessary wedge issues like a consitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The only purpose of issues like that is to divide the electorate and solidify support from the far right. Dick said he doesn't know why the government is so divided. Maybe part of that stems from the fact that Cheney himself refuses to even meet with Democrats when he visits the Hill, (that's probably also the reason he claims to have never met Edwards before last night, another lie). Maybe its because in the rare moments he does "reach across the aisle," he does so with a "go fuck yourself." Cheney knows exactly why this country and this government is so divided and Edwards should've slammed him on it.
Leave 'em Trembling
Cheney didn't eat any babies, but he did manage to scare us one last time in his closing remarks:
"Now we find ourselves in the midst of a conflict unlike any we've ever known, faced with the possibility that terrorists could smuggle a deadly biological agent or a nuclear weapon into the middle of one of our own cities."
Sweet Dreams America!
Thus ends our little analysis. Of course, the debate was filled with many more substantive issues than the ones presented above, and those issues were backed up by a Swift Boatload of facts (sort of), figures and statistics. All those complicated numbers and difficult-to-pronounce issues probably explain the following analysis offered by the president this morning:
"America saw two very different visions of our country and two different hairdos. I didn't pick my vice president for his hairdo."Well, thank god for that. What a dumbass.
Read the full transcript of the Veep Debate here.
Read Wonkette's much more entertaining liveblogging here.
Comments:
>>Unfortunately for Cheney, the actual address is factcheck.org. So where does factcheck.com take you? To none other than Bush-bashing billionaire George Soros' website of course. Oops.
It gets even better. Factcheck.com is in fact a commercial website based in the Cayman Islands. Overwhelmed with hits after Cheney's plug, the website owner decided to, according to his attorney, `...relieve stress on the service and to express a political point of view,' and redirected the traffic to Soros' site. One would think that the Cayman Islands would be part of Bush's base given its status as a haven for wealthy tax dodgers (http://www.therationalradical.com/dsep/1201/cayman-islands.htm), but not in this case unfortunately for the sullen Veep; can't you picture the egg frying on his humiliated head?
And it gets even better! According to the Times this morning, those few who actually did go to factcheck.org saw the following statement:
"In fact we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn't profited personally while in office from Halliburton's Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney's responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right."
So it seems as if Cheney should have checked the facts before telling others to check their facts on factcheck.com OR factcheck.org because in fact the fact checkers who bothered to check the facts now have the facts checked! Checkmate!
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It gets even better. Factcheck.com is in fact a commercial website based in the Cayman Islands. Overwhelmed with hits after Cheney's plug, the website owner decided to, according to his attorney, `...relieve stress on the service and to express a political point of view,' and redirected the traffic to Soros' site. One would think that the Cayman Islands would be part of Bush's base given its status as a haven for wealthy tax dodgers (http://www.therationalradical.com/dsep/1201/cayman-islands.htm), but not in this case unfortunately for the sullen Veep; can't you picture the egg frying on his humiliated head?
And it gets even better! According to the Times this morning, those few who actually did go to factcheck.org saw the following statement:
"In fact we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn't profited personally while in office from Halliburton's Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney's responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right."
So it seems as if Cheney should have checked the facts before telling others to check their facts on factcheck.com OR factcheck.org because in fact the fact checkers who bothered to check the facts now have the facts checked! Checkmate!
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