The Dish

The biggest news of the week was not the vice-presidential debate, of course. It was the revelation that the major criticism that many of us have made about the management of the Iraq war – that we never had enough troops and still don’t – was shared all along by none other than L. Paul Bremer! That’s a staggering concession – and one that Cheney had no real response to last night. Wretchard of the Belmont Club blog immediately countered by saying that what Bremer meant was that there were too few troops merely at the very beginning of the occupation, and that Bremer’s criticism was directly related to the absence of the Fourth Infantry Division, caused by the Turks’ refusal to allow the U.S. to use their country as an invasion point. Nice try. Bremer’s full quote is as follows: “The single most important change – the one thing that would have improved the situation – would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout” the occupation. (My italics.) Wretchard either removed the words “and throughout,” or missed them. Either way, his case collapses. Traveling yesterday, I missed those two crucial words myself and was far too conciliatory in myposting. Not only that but even the administration now concedes that Bremer kept pressing for more troops. According to the NYT, “‘The reality is that Paul kept pressing the issue, because it was immediately clear that a lot of facilities – even arms stockpiles – were unguarded,’ said one senior official who was part of that debate but insisted on anonymity.” Case closed. Wretchard claims that his only goal is the articulation of military strategy and that I don’t know what I’m talking about. The alternative explanation is that he is a partisan Republican, spinning the facts for political purposes. I link. You decide.

More great news from Baghdad:

From: “Baghdad, USConsul”
To: “Baghdad, USConsul”
Subject: Warden Message
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 14:36:13 +0000

Warden Message – Increased Security Awareness within the International Zone

On October 5, 2004, at approximately 1 pm, U.S. Embassy security personnel discovered an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at the Green Zone Café. A U.S. Military Explosive Ordnance Detachment safely disarmed the IED.
American citizens living or working in the International Zone are strongly encouraged to take the following security precautions:

* Limit non-essential movement within the International Zone, especially at night.
* Travel in groups of two or more.
* Carry several means of communication.
* Avoid the Green Zone Café, the Chinese Restaurants, the Lone Star restaurant and Vendor Alley.
* Conduct physical fitness training within a compound perimeter.
* Notify office personnel or friends of your travel plans in the International Zone.
**** Conduct a thorough search of your vehicle prior to entering it.

Consular Section
US Embassy Baghdad

Apart from being unable to maintain security even within the Green Zone, “we’re making progress in Iraq,” as the vice president said last night.

Here’s an email that confirms my view of how well Edwards did with swing voters:

If you do some simple math, you can figure out that your instinct about the ABC news poll is right. Because the 38% in the sample who were Republicans gave it overwhelmingly to Cheney, with only a few Repubs calling it a draw, and because a substantial plurality of Democracts called it a draw (approx 30%), you can figure out how the 32 percent of the sample who were independents must have called it. On my math, it comes out approximately 43 for Edwards, 34 for Cheney, and 23 a draw. That puts the ABC poll figures for independents awfully close to the CBS poll for uncommiteds.

Exactly. The Republican base saw the election slipping away last Thursday. They needed a win and they convinced themselves they had one. But Edwards directed his answers to the undecideds. And, unless the pro-Cheney spin gets deafening, he scored big.
CORRECTION: The reader is wrong. The ABC poll shows independents favoring Cheney 42 – 37 percent.

Will Saletan agrees with me that Edwards destroyed Cheney last night:

If you watched this debate as an uninformed voter, you heard an avalanche of reasons to vote for Kerry. You heard 23 times that Kerry has a “plan” for some big problem or that Bush doesn’t. You heard 10 references to Halliburton, with multiple allegations of bribes, no-bid contracts, and overcharges. You heard 13 associations of Bush with drug or insurance companies. You heard four attacks on him for outsourcing. You heard again and again that he opposed the 9/11 commission and the Department of Homeland Security, that he “diverted” resources from the fight against al-Qaida to the invasion of Iraq, and that while our troops “were on the ground fighting, [the administration] lobbied the Congress to cut their combat pay.” You heard that Kerry served in Vietnam and would “double the special forces.” You heard that Bush is coddling the Saudis, that Cheney “cut over 80 weapons systems,” and that the administration has no air-cargo screening or unified terrorist watch list.

On all the critical questions in this election – why is Osama bin Laden still at large? why did we invade Iraq? why has the Iraq occupation come unglued? why the poor jobs record? why the record deficits? – Cheney had almost no answer at all. If you’re already a committed Bush voter, it must have felt great to see a candidate articluate and aggressive. But any undecided voter would have sided with Edwards. That’s what matters. (Btw, here’s what Jonah said last night, after calling me “batty” for believing that Cheney was eviscerated: “I’d go so far as to predict that Sullivan is the only big name/mainstream pundit in America who has that opinion.” Hmmm. Does the political correspondent for Slate count?)

Last night was a blogathon, so my first post on the debate is way down there. For convenience’s sake, if you’re just tuning in, here it is. I thought Edwards won easily.

Glenn isn’t in the mood to make a judgment, and I don’t blame him. Jeff Jarvis says Edwards won. Mickey says it’s a draw. Polipundit says Bush won big. Drezner kinda cops out on his own view but says most people will think Cheney won. All the online polls show a huge Edwards win – but they might be hijacked.

THE BALANCE SHIFTS: More and more readers are coming to my defense. Here are a couple of emails:

I certainly don’t think that Cheney looked like road-kill (at least not until the end when he seemed too tired to get out of his chair), and Cheney had some zingers, but I thought Edwards completely held his own. I don’t know, maybe part of it is not believing many of the patent untruths that Cheney was stating believing that the audience would just take everything he said at face value, but I’ve now seen many people say Cheney won demonstratively (including, shockingly enough to me, the entire Hardball crew) and I just don’t see it.
Yes, I’m a Kerry-Edwards supporter, but I’ll give Cheney his due. But that big moment of Cheney’s when he started hammering Edwards about his Senate record, that wasn’t in response to anything except for the fact that Edwards had gotten Cheney riled and angry. Who knows what the question even was at that point, but Cheney left the subject completely to simply talk about Edwards record. He didn’t demonstrate physically the discomfort that Bush had last week, but you could see it at some point.
I’m as baffled as you are, because Cheney by the end looked sick and tired. Edwards started getting weak at the end, and maybe that’s why people are bothered. But I just watched Chris Matthews talk about how Edwards looked like he just kept getting face-slapped and I didn’t see that at all. I’m just baffled.

Don’t be baffled. You’re right. Here’s another:

I’m with you 100% on this, and I think most average americans feel the same way. Cheney looked like a cadaver, mumbled, and did a poor job of defending his positions. If you didn’t already loathe the Kerry/Edwards ticket (disclaimer: I’m an unenthusiastic Democrat), the punches he landed wouldn’t stick. Edwards was clear, conversational, and spoke about the issues with such clarity that I wish he had a longer resume so we could be voting for him instead.

That was my impression.

ABCNews’ poll gives the debate to Cheney – by a margin of 43 to 35 percent, with 19 percent calling it a tie. That may end up as the conventional wisdom. But the viewing public made it skewed, because 38 percent of ABC’s viewers were Republicans, 31 percent Democrats, and the rest independents. Adjust for that and it’s almost a tie. CBS’ poll – dismiss it, if you will – of only uncommitted voters found that 41 percent said Edwards won the debate, versus 28 percent who said Cheney won. Thirty-one percent said it was a tie. That makes more sense to me. In the ABC News poll, Bush supporters were particularly emphatic that Cheney won big. That makes sense to me psychologically – and it may help explain why so many conservatives viewed it as a huge Cheney win. They need to believe that right now, to keep their spirits up after last Thursday. The pundits also want to keep the interest alive and so may want to back Cheney to keep the race more interesting. My view is that Cheney undoubtedly fired up his base; but I doubt very much that he made any headway with swing voters, and may well have alienated many. Edwards helped Kerry tonight. I didn’t expect it; but I’m sticking with my judgment. My view is that Republican bias is making many believe Cheney did much better than he actually did. I’d already discounted the Daddy factor. But we’ll see, won’t we?

Well, I’ve now received dozens and dozens of emails and no one agrees with me. Many are offensive; most are just bewildered. Here are two of the more cogent:

I don’t know Andrew. As a registered Democrat here in Ohio, I agreed with you on the outcome of the first debate, but I thought Vice President Cheney mopped up tonight. I missed the roadkill that you apparently saw. I saw the common harbinger to roadkill; a deer in the headlights. That deer in the headlights was Senator Edwards. I don’t think this debate will matter much in the end, but it was clear to me that Edwards was destroyed. Is it too late to get Dick Gephardt on the ticket?

Then this one:

What debate were you watching? Cheney destroyed Edwards/Kerry on foreign policy, helped I must say by Gwen Ifill’s questions about Kerry’s “global test” and pie in the sky plan to convince Chirac to send troops to Iraq. When Cheney hammered at Kerry’s senate record and twists and turns, Edwards could say nothing except that Kerry had stood strong in a debate last week. This set up the body slam that a 90 minute debate can’t make up for a bad 20 year senate record! The first 45 minutes of the debate created a great platform for the rest of the week — focus on Kerry’s senate record. Apparently Bush will give a speech on Kerry’s record tomorrow. What will Kerry/Edwards talk about?? Haliburton?
Money Quote: “If you can’t stand up to Howard Dean, how can you stand up to Al Qaeda!”
The second 45 minutes was more diffuse. I must say that the questions were not conducive to a good debate. The first question was about “poverty,” and not jobs or growth. There was no general question about health care. I felt sorry for Edwards who kept trying to shoe-horn health care answers into questions on legal reform, etc. Nor was there any general question about education, leaving Cheney to talk about it under the heading of poverty and Edwards to talk about it 15 minutes later. Two ships, a luxury liner and a speedboat, were passing in the night.

Obviously, I’m as bewildered as you are by this response. I’m in a tiny minority. But I wrote what I thought I saw. Can’t do anything else. Some of this – most of it, actually – has to be subjective. I should repeat: I expected Cheney to win easily. Maybe that prejudiced me. But I see little doubt that Edwards came off as by far the more appealing, persuasive and eloquent figure. No, it won’t matter much. But I’ll stick with my assessment.

WHEN CHENEY MET EDWARDS: Here’s a pic.

From the beginning of the debate, it seemed to me that the contrast was fundamental. Let’s start with superficials – because they do matter in debates. The only way to describe Cheney’s performance was exhausted. He looks drained. And you can see why. One of the least understood and reported aspects of the current administration is simply the enormous strain of the past four years. They have endured some of the most testing times any modern president and vice-president have had to encounter. And you can see the strain and exhaustion in both the two principals. I’m not criticizing; in fact, I’m empathizing. But the result is obvious: when confronted with the major issues they have been dealing with day in day out, issues they know intimately and have worked on endlessly, their response is simply what Cheney himself kept saying: “Where do I start?” They have become so enmeshed in running a war that they have become almost unable to articulate its goals and process – and at times seem resentful that they even have to. There was a tone of exasperation in much of Cheney’s wooden and often technical responses to political and moral questions. I can’t explain the incoherence except fatigue and an awareness deep inside that they have indeed screwed up in some critical respects, that it’s obvious to them as well as everyone else, and that they have lost the energy required to brazen their way through it. What I saw last night was a vice-president crumpling under the weight of onerous responsibility. My human response was to hope he’ll get some rest. My political response was to wonder why he simply couldn’t or wouldn’t answer the fundamental questions in front of him in ways that were easy to understand and redolent of conviction.

SNARL, SMILE: But, in fact, it was worse than that. He went down snarling. His personal attacks on Edwards were so brutal and so personal and so direct that I cannot believe that anyone but die-hard partisans would have warmed to them. Edwards’ criticisms, on the other hand, were tough but relatively indirect – he was always and constantly directing the answers to his own policies. Edwards, whom I’d thought would come of as a neophyte, was able to give answers that were clear and methodical and far better, in my view, than Kerry’s attempts to explain himself last Thursday. On substance, Cheney clearly had the better of the debate on Afghanistan; his criticisms of Kerry’s record were strong and detailed; his brutal assessment of Edwards’ attendance record was sharp – but too direct and brutal to win over swing voters. But on domestic policy, he was terrible. Again, he used the term “fiscal restraint,” but he gave no explanation for the unprecedented slide toward debt in the last four years. When asked to respond to a question about young black women with HIV, Cheney might as well have been asked about Martians. He had no response to the charges (largely new to me) about Halliburton. He had no solid response to the question of sufficient troops in Iraq or the capability of the coalition to guarantee national elections in January. He was weak on healthcare; and said that the Massachusetts Supreme Court had ordered the legislature to change the state constitution! Huh? And, of course, he cannot disguise that he supports a president who would remove any legal protections for his own daughter’s relationship.

EDWARDS’ WOBBLES: Visually, Edwards’ face was neutral or smiling. Cheney barely cracked a smile in the entire debate, and, at times, seemed positively angry and bitter. The split-screen contrast made this even clearer. Edwards made little sense on Afghanistan; he wobbled on the “global test” issue; and he was completely at sea when asked to respond to the question that he was too inexperienced for office. Of course, that’s a hard question to answer without seeming defensive. But Edwards still failed. But he was brutally repetitive in making the Saddam-Osama contrast; he was equally strong in pinning the failure to find bin Laden on the administration; and he was the only candidate to speak in any meaningful way to the anxieties of ordinary people. I watched the debate again with a crowd of college students, at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. Maybe their flummoxed response to Cheney and obvious rapport with Edwards influenced my take. But I have to say I thought this was a more lop-sided victory than Thursday’s. And I write this without reading anyone else’s response or anyone else’s spin. On C-SPAN, Mickey just informed me that mine is not the conventional wisdom. I’ll be looking at the transcript soon and will be fisking some of it for tomorrow’s TNR. Stay tuned. Now to your emails …

Boy was I ever wrong. If last Thursday night’s debate was an assisted suicide for president Bush, this debate – just concluded – was a car wreck. And Cheney was road-kill. There were times when it was so overwhelming a debate victory for Edwards that I had to look away. I have to do C-SPAN now, but stay tuned for more post-debate blogging in a little while.