Mr. Gone and the $200 Billion

The Jimmy Carter of trial lawyers--aka "Senator Gone"

Dick Cheney crushed John Edwards tonight. From factual inconsistencies, Kerry and Edwards voting records or Edwards attendance record and inexperience, Cheney found and devastated the legitimacy of the Kerry/Edwards candidacy. To be quite honest--I expected no less. Cheney clearly had one of the highest IQs in the debate hall. His knowledge and experience and coolness under fire were awe-inspiring even for us insiders.

Edwards tried his trial lawyer rhetoric on Cheney and it just was out fact-checked and corrected. Like an inexperienced just-out-of-law-school attorney against some old-timer District Attorney, Edwards appeared weak and without answers. Too many diversions, flusters and the inability to follow a simple verbal instruction highlighted this inexperience. Cheney was at the top of his game, which makes it all appear effortless. Cheney is the father who instructs the child and scolds him for ditching class and falling in with the wrong crowd.

Watching Edwards get red-faced and flustered under Cheney's remarks it was hard not to see Edwards as the disobedient schoolboy testing his manhood, but underestimating the wisdom that sets behind the glasses and time-smoothed cranium of his father.

Cheney made no discernible mistakes. The only mistake, if it can be called such, is that as he folded his hands in front of his microphone it muted much of a sentence or two--and really, that was the sound grip's problem.

If you watch one bit of televised politics this year--this was the one to watch, the Bush/Kerry debates will not be as informative because both men are not as skilled orators as were these two men tonight.

Edwards experienced a deflation comparable to his false $200 billion dollar Iraq war costs claim--a claim which was corrected first by Cheney and then later by the 'conservative' folks at ABC news after the debate.

I would end this with a witty line or sign off, but the stakes are too great, the fate of many billions of people will hang in the balance. Freedom itself is on the ballot this year and I want to emphasize how important it is this year to go out and vote for George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Thank you Dick Cheney. Thanks for your efforts for America and Americans and taking heaps of abuse while doing it. I still like Dick Cheney. Hopefully viewers who watched him tonight will also come around to liking this man, his convictions and unwavering devotion to what he believes is right.

(crossposted at Redstate.org)

UPDATE: A good analysis from Chris Matthews & Co. at MSNBC:"I think the analogy would be a water pistol against a machine gun. Every once in a while, Edwards would take a squirt at the vice president, and then the vice president would just turn the Howitzer on the guy.
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