EDWARDS TAKES THE DAY a vote for Bush is a vote for death...

According to most punditry I've seen post Edwards/Cheney debate, Cheney won. That's that damn liberal media you've heard so much about--they're always pulling for the liberal, Democratic candidate and declaring them the winner of debates. Yeah, right.

Well anyway, Edwards won because he has more energy, charisma, virility, charm, and downright sex appeal. He's also right on the issues (except that part about submitting malpractice suits to a board to see if they're worthy of going to trial), and Dick Cheney is a liar. And I quote:

CHENEY
(VP debate, 10-5-04): The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested
there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established
Iraqi track record with terror.

CHENEY
(Orlando, FL 6-14-04):In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was in power,overseeing one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century. He had started two wars [not unlike G.W.B.] -- produced and used weapons of mass destruction against Iran and the Kurds, and was in repeated violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. He was a patron of terrorism -- paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers in Israel, and providing safe-haven and support for such terrorist groups as Abu Nidal and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He had long established ties with al Qaeda.

And as Chris Matthews berated Ben Ginsberg, that argument is the crux of the biscuit--if there was an Iraq/Al Qaeda connection, the Iraq war would be much easier to justify. Ginsberg tried to insinuate yet again that the 9/11 Commission report hinted at an Iraq/Al Qaeda connection, but Matthews corrected him and shamed him. Good! But the problem for Bush/Cheney is that there was no connection, and even Donald Rumsfeld said as much yesterday:

Asked to describe the connection between the Iraqi leader and the al-Qaida terror network at an appearance Monday at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Pentagon chief first refused to answer, then said: ''To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.''

That's the Bush/Cheney strategy: obfuscate and fudge the truth as often as possible. Cheney tried to do it again, and Edwards called him on it sharply and precisely. So therefore, since Edwards is on the right side of the issues and didn't lead our troops into an unnecessary, illegal war on bad information and then lie about it, he won this debate and wins every debate.

Fahrenheit 9/11

Bought the DVD today. The clerk asked us if it was "funny" and said she'd never heard of it before but that a lot of people had come in to buy it. Watching Bush's 7 Minute Gap at the Booker school, I was reminded of his performance in last Thursday's debate--just kind of clueless, lots of blinking and lip-tightening. He's on the way out. Kerry will get the most votes--no question about it.