“Rope-a-dope” or “No mas”?

Round 2: Would Saddam still be in power if John Kerry and John Edwards had been in office?

The decoded version of Edwards’s response amounts to: Umm, maybe? The senator takes the line that America should have acted unilaterally in Afghanistan at Tora Bora. Then he insists that there was “no connection” between Saddam and al Qaeda. Cheney responds that Edwards has his facts wrong. (Not that facts matter in these things, but Cheney is, objectively speaking, correct. See here and here and here and here–for starters.) Cheney then brings up Kerry’s “global test” and the fact that he voted against Dessert Storm in 1991. “A little tough talk in the middle” of a campaign can’t obscure a record of 20 years, he says.

Round to Cheney

Round 3: What is your plan to catch Osama?

Cheney doesn’t have much of an answer, but mentions how two years ago Edwards claimed Afghanistan was about to descend into chaos and now the Afghan people are on the eve of their first election. “He just got it wrong,” he says. He then makes the El Salvador parallel. Edwards’s response: Iran and North Korea are getting nukes.

Round to Cheney

Round 4: What is a global test?

Edwards says that the global test is telling the truth and that “we’re going to tell the truth.” He also rings the 90 percent of cost and casualties bell.

Cheney replies: “The 90 percent figure is just dead wrong.” Likewise the $200 billion Iraq price tag: “It wasn’t $200 billion, you probably weren’t there to vote for that. . . . Your facts are just wrong senator. . . . It’s awfully hard to convey a sense of credibility to allies when you voted for the war, and then you declare wrong war, wrong place, wrong time. You voted for the war and then you voted against supporting the troops. . . you’re not credible on Iraq because of the enormous inconsistencies of John Kerry and you have cited time after time . . . . whatever the political pressures of the moment requires, that’s where you’re at.” And he’s down!

Round to Cheney

Round 5: Do you think Kerry makes a terrorist attack more likely?

Cheney is quick to note that Republicans question Kerry’s judgment, not his patriotism. He then goes on to blame Kerry and Edwards’s vote against the $87 billion for Iraq on Howard Dean: “If they couldn’t stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to al Qaeda?”

Edwards responds by saying that, “A long résumé does not equal good judgment.” And that the real reason he and Kerry voted against the $87 billion was because “it was clear that they had no plan to win the peace.” That and the fact that they just knew the money was going to go to “Halliburton.” Somewhere in Vermont, Howard Dean is screaming at his television.

Round to Cheney

Round 6: How will Kerry internationalize Iraq when France and Germany won’t step in no matter what?

Edwards: “We have a plan for Iraq!” From his answer, however, it appears that the Kerry-Edwards plan doesn’t include France or Germany. Cheney makes the case that our most important allies are the Iraqis fighting for their country. He hits Kerry for dissing Allawi, saying he “demeaned” him on his recent visit. Edwards’s suggestion “that somehow they shouldn’t count” is “beyond the pale.”

Round to Cheney

Round 7: Will you have sufficient intelligence to act in the future if the CIA is broken?

Edwards doesn’t even pretend to answer the question. In fairness, neither does Cheney. (It’s possible that this stems from the near incoherence of Ifill’s wording.) But the vice president does discusses Zarqawi, and gives a succinct timeline of his career vis-à-vis the CIA memo. Again, an impressive command of detail.

Round to Cheney

Round 8: When Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, he wanted to lift sanctions on Iran. Where is he now?

Cheney explains that he was against unilateral sanctions, but favors multilateral sanctions, and then explains why the Bush administration is treating Iran differently from Iraq. He points out that five days after Saddam was captured, Libya gave up its WMD program. “There are 60 countries who have members of al Qaeda in them,” Edwards says. “How many of those countries are we going to invade?” (Subtext: If Bush and Cheney have their way, all of them!) Then he complains that Bush turned diplomatic handling of Iran over to the Europeans. Which means that he now criticizes the president for leaning too much on international diplomacy and our allies. Edwards then launches into the Halliburton-traitor-nobidcontract-Halliburton-bloodforoil-Halliburton chorus. Confronted with conspiracy theory, Cheney points viewers to factcheck.com. The only problem is, factcheck.com funnels viewers to GeorgeSoros.com. Tonight’s Soros headline: “President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values.” Someone should get fired for this.

Round to Edwards

Round 9: What would Kerry-Edwards do in Israel?

Echoing the pro-Israel sentiment from his convention speech, Edwards says, “the Israeli people not only have a right to defend themselves, they should defend themselves.” He talks about being in Israel during the Sbarro bombing and asks, “what are the Israeli people supposed to do?” Then he throws Arafat under the bus. Good, strong stuff.

Cheney decides to simply let it rip: “You’ve missed 33 out of 36 meetings on the Judiciary committee; almost 70 percent of the meetings on the Intelligence Committee, you’ve missed a lot of key votes . . . your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you ‘Senator Gone.’ . . . You have one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate. . . . I’m up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they’re in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked up on the stage tonight.” Then he explains that the Israeli suicide bombers were paid $25,000 a piece by Saddam, and part of the reason Israel hasn’t seen more Sbarro bombings is because of Bush’s decision to free Iraq. Somebody should stop this thing–the kid still has a future.

Round to Cheney

Round 10: What will you do for poor people in cities?

Gwen Ifill to the rescue. Having the subject abruptly changed, Cheney talks about Head Start and accountability and Bush’s bipartisan work with Ted Kennedy on education. Edwards asks Ifill: “Your question was about jobs?” Ooooh. “They’re for outsourcing jobs.” “We’re against it.” In his rebuttal Cheney still doesn’t mention jobs.

Round to Edwards

Round 11: How will Kerry cut the deficit in half without raising taxes?

With neither candidate making a convincing argument, this one’s a squeaker. The temptation to switch to Yankees-Twins surfaces for the first time.

Round to Edwards

Round 12: What do you think of gay marriage?

Cheney says freedom is for everyone, but that marriage should be left to the states. He says Bush “sets policy for this administration” and that he “supports the president.” That’s faint praise. Edwards mentions specifically that Cheney’s daughter is gay–which is probably news for 70 percent of viewers. He says that he and Kerry believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Round to Edwards

Round 13: Are Kerry and Edwards trying to have this gay marriage thing both ways?

John Edwards howls, “Noooo!” “But we do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman,” he reaffirms. He then attacks the marriage amendment as an unnecessary “political tool.” Then, the strangest moment of the debate: Cheney thanks Edwards for the kind words about his family and clams up, ceding almost his entire 90 seconds. This isn’t mutiny, exactly. Still, if I were Dick Cheney I’d avoid Karen Hughes for the next 1,713 years.

Round to Edwards

Round 14: Are trial lawyers responsible for rising medical costs? Is Edwards part of the problem?

It’s the return of the GOP OBGYNs–for some reason, whenever Republicans talk about the burdens of doctors, they talk about obstetrician-gynecologists. Now why would that be . . .

Edwards says that he’s “proud of the work I did” as an ambulance chaser, that but “we do have too many lawsuits.” Now this really is mutiny. America’s trial lawyers paid for John Edwards’s presidential campaign, and they want him to stay bought. Maybe they’ll sue.

Round to Edwards

Round 15: Does Edwards feel personally attacked by Bush and Cheney’s talk about tort reform?

The loser here is Gwen Ifill, who has just asked the dumbest question in debate history. Even Edwards doesn’t seem to understand why she cares about his feelings. The dark urge to check the score is rewarded: Cheney’s winning, the Yankees are losing, and all’s right in the world. Back in Cleveland, Cheney hits Edwards for his legal tax evasion. Ouch. Edwards’s lame response:, He did it too!

Round to Cheney

Round to 16: What should the government do to stop AIDS?

Cheney talks about how seriously Bush takes AIDS, Edwards says that Kerry wants to double Bush’s $15 billion AIDS commitment.

Round to Edwards

Round 17: What qualifies you to be a heartbeat away?

The substance of Edwards’s response is laughable and matters not at all. He gets the delivery right and, on cue, looks the part. In the best zinger of the night, Cheney says that he’s been able to be a good vice president “because I’ve made it clear that I don’t have any further political aspirations myself.”

Round to Edwards

Round 18: Without saying the words “Bush” or “Kerry,” talk about why you’re better than your opponent.

What is happening here? The next question from Ifill might as well be: Describe your plans for handling the Sudan using words of no more than three syllables which do not contain the letter “e”. This isn’t My Word. Edwards breaks the stupid rule by saying Kerry’s name–twice.

Round to Jim Lehrer

Round 19: What’s wrong with a little flip-flop every now and then?

Another unbelievable question from Ifill. Edwards lists a great number of Bush-Cheney “flip-flops.” The problem here is that this argument runs counter to their main avenue of attack: That Bush is too strong-headed and ideological. Cheney lists the Kerry litany, which is more strategically valuable. They both look punched out.

Round to Cheney

Round 20: How will you bridge the political divide in the next four years?

Ifill directs the question to Edwards. He tells her she’s wrong, that it’s Cheney’s question. She insists she isn’t wrong. Fifteen seconds into Edwards’s answer, Ifill realizes that she is, in fact, wrong. Just to be clear: The problem with Gwen Ifill isn’t that she’s politically biased–it’s that in her choice of questions and handling of the format, she is very nearly incompetent tonight.

Cheney talks about his Democratic friends from when he was in Congress. In the funniest moment I’ve seen in a debate, he suggests that Zell Miller’s keynote address at the Republican convention was a good example of bipartisanship. Best inside joke ever.

Round to Cheney

IT SAYS HERE Cheney wins on points, 11 to 8 (with one round disqualified by way of Gwen Ifill). How much does this matter? Probably not at all. There were obviously two debates: Cheney shellacked Edwards on questions of foreign policy, Edwards was more convincing–and more comfortable–with domestic policy. Cheney was as dominant early as most expected, and Edwards showed a surprising stamina and willingness to pick himself up off of the canvass.

Not that any of this matters, of course. Electoral votes aren’t won or lost at a VP debate. What does matter are a couple of tactical points: (1) Cheney succeeded in putting the focus back on Kerry’s Senate record, as opposed to simply hammering the flip-flop theme. (2) Edwards survived and leaves Cleveland with his 2008 viability intact.

Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard.