I happen to think Cheney did a masterful job last night. Still, with the advantage of Wednesday-morning quarterbacking, I noticed a few opportunities he missed that would, in my opinion, have made his performance even stronger. Here are three of them:
1. Kerry and Edwards have made a mantra about Bush rushing to war and doing so “the wrong way,” by which they mean we did not assemble a “true” or “real” coalition as Bush I did before the Gulf War in 1991. Edwards repeated this litany Tuesday night. But if the Gulf War coalition is the standard that must be met, why did John Kerry vote against the use of force in that war? Does anyone really believe that if that exact coalition had been duplicated this time Kerry would have been a supporter of this war?
2. Another litany repeated by Edwards was criticism of Bush for supporting the outsourcing of jobs. But he and Kerry also criticize Bush for excluding foreign, i.e., mainly French, companies from profiting from reconstruction work in Iraq. In other words, Sen. Edwards, you actually favor outsourcing American jobs to foreign countries in rebuilding Iraq?
3. When asked what Kerry meant by passing a “global test,” Edwards replied by quoting something else Kerry said about hunting down terrorists wherever they are and killing them. But, Senator, surely by now it is clear that Kerry is not a reliable source as to what Kerry means in any given statement. This is just one more instance of Kerry saying conflicting things on the same subject.
I wish Cheney had taken a moment to rebut Edwards’ point that Cheney himself had advocated scrapping most of the same weapons systems that Kerry was accused of voting against. This is true, but with a twist: Kerry promised to vote against them in his 1984 Senate bid — that is, while the Cold War was still on. Cheney’s statement was in (I think) 1989. Big difference, yes?
http://www.thecobraslair.com/National%20Issues20.html
I guess anybody can be effective at debates if they lie enough. The most obvious one was Cheney claiming to have never met Edwards, and that alone will perhaps leave the most memories of this debate, because it was his most powerful moment. Another blatant example was when Cheney had the AUDACITY to claim that he had NEVER SUGGESTED a connection between Iraq and the attack on 9/11. That was the entire strategy of the Bush propaganda campaign, hilighted by Cheney’s insistance on speaking out to the media, that is, when he wasn’t in a “secret location.”
>>>Evidence of a connection, if any exists, has never been made public. Details that Cheney cited to make the case that the Iraqi dictator had ties to Al Qaeda have been dismissed by the CIA as having no basis, according to analysts and officials. Even before the war in Iraq, most Bush officials did not explicitly state that Iraq had a part in the attack on the United States two years ago.
But Cheney left that possibility wide open in a nationally televised interview two days ago, claiming that the administration is learning “more and more” about connections between Al Qaeda and Iraq before the Sept. 11 attacks. The statement surprised some analysts and officials who have reviewed intelligence reports from Iraq.”
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/09/16/cheney_link_of_iraq_911_challenged/
And here during the GOP Convention:
>>>It is a familiar strategy. Bush and particularly Cheney have long suggested links between Hussein and terrorist groups, even al Qaeda. But investigations after the war, such as the inquiry by the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, have largely disproved the alleged connections. Yet in their convention speeches, the president and the vice president linked Sept. 11 and Iraq even more tightly than before.
“In a campaign that has reached around the world, we have captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda,” Cheney said, in quick succession mentioning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “In Iraq,” he said, “we dealt with a gathering threat and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62435-2004Sep4.html
This kind of bait-and-switch technique was effective for Bush and Cheney because it played on America’s weaknesses. There aren’t enough Americans who take the time to actually READ and RESEARCH many topics on their own, and rely on mainly television and talk radio for their information. Also, there was an avenging spirit, and a desire to “make somebody pay” for 9/11. The ill-read, ignorant and ethnocentric masses didn’t really make a distinction between the predominantly Saudi, and Islamic fundamentalist Al Qaeda and the secular Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regimes. Everybody conveniently became “they” and “them.” As we CONCLUSIVELY found out this week, there was NO CONNECTION and NO weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/281/wash/Bush_Cheney_concede_Saddam_had:.shtml
I will say this for Dick Cheney. He appears to have a far better grasp of the policies, strategies and vision of the Bush Administration than Bush himself does, and can actually articulate them. I don’t know if that’s an especially good thing or not.
My favorite part of the debate was when Edwards ran down Cheney’s voting record in the House:
“He voted against the Department of Education,” Edwards said, referring to Cheney’s years in Congress. “He voted against funding for Meals on Wheels for seniors. He voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa.”
I was doubled over with laughter. This reminded me of George Bailey facing Mr. Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” And I’m glad that African Americans, working class moms, and senior citizens got to hear the FACTS about what and WHOM Dick Cheney really stands for.
–Cobra
Cobra, suggestions of ties between between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and (richly documented) support of terrorist activities by Saddam’s government do not equal “Saddam was responsible for 9/11.” I don’t see why so many people have trouble grasping this. It’s the difference between saying that someone was connected to the IRA and saying that someone helped the IRA carry out a particular atrocity. Not the same thing.
Cheney’s point, which I think he made very clearly, was that Iraq is a place in which there was a lot of weapons development going on, and a lot of terrorists of all stripes passing through (I suppose Abu Nidal was just vacationing in Baghdad when he died there?), and thus an obvious place for terrorists and nasty weapons of various kinds to come together. Thus, something to be worried about.
And I keep hearing how “secular” Saddam’s government was, but your average secular monarch doesn’t name vast mosques after himself, or commission copies of the Qu’ran handwritten in his own blood. George Bush is widely viewed as a raving religious fanatic, and I suppose if he were to build an enormous George Bush National Shrine adorned with an authentic-Bush-blood Bible at its center, I’d think so too.
Michelle,
Again, this is another example of spinning the excuse for the war after the point of no return.
If you constantly conflate Saddam Hussein/Iraq/terrorists and the attack on 9/11, the unwashed, ill-read, and ignorant out there would assume that Saddam Hussein actually had something to do with the attack. So much so, that there is STILL a large segment of America that believes Saddam Hussein attacked us.
>>>WASHINGTON – In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11.
Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was “personally involved” in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.htm
I have no doubt there were and are “terrorists” in Iraq. Hey, we have terrorists in AMERICA…Tim McVeigh, Ted Kazcinski, John Muhammed,Eric Rudolph (Olympic Bomber), the uncaught Anthrax mailer, not to mention an array of millitant millitia groups, separatist organizations and my personal favorite, the Ku Klux Klan.
Therefore, invading Iraq because “there are terrorists there” is not only silly, but cannot be justified, in light of the fact that America has its own domestic terrorist house to get into order.
You also write:
>>>Cheney’s point, which I think he made very clearly, was that Iraq is a place in which there was a lot of weapons development going on”
Well, that’s not what the Deulfer report states.
>>>Contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost more than 1,000 U.S. lives, the top U.S. arms inspector reported Wednesday that he had found no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991. He also concluded that Saddam Hussein
Cobra, there is a considerable difference between a nation’s containing terrorists and a nation’s harboring and sponsoring them. Unless you think the KKK, Kaczynski, John Muhammad, McVeigh, et al. were bankrolled by the US Government, or protected by it, you’re conflating victims of terrorism with sponsors.
Saddam offered financial incentives to suicide bombers: their families would be compensated on a scale that amounts to Real Money if you live in, say, Gaza. Is it wrong to call that state support of terrorism? I don’t see why.
Ansar al-Islam training camps were operating in Iraq. There were numerous reports of contact between al-Qaeda members and Iraqi officials. Doesn’t that indicate “some connection” between Saddam and al-Qaeda? I don’t see how it wouldn’t.
None of that adds up to “Saddam is implicated in 9/11.”
Your answer is, well, no, it doesn’t, but that’s how the stupid ignorant public will understand it. So, in your view, the Administration might actually have told the truth, but for practical purposes it lied.
Cobra, if that’s how you feel about the public at large, why do you want democracy at all? What does it get you but people voting about things that they can’t possibly understand and are going to be ceaselessly manipulated about? . . . oh, sorry, now I understand.
Re the Duelfer [correct spelling] report, read the danged thing before concluding what you did above.
Michelle,
Are you saying we have lost 1,070 American servicemen because:
>>>”Saddam offered financial incentives to suicide bombers: their families would be compensated on a scale that amounts to Real Money if you live in, say, Gaza.
Michelle, I’ve given you statistical facts on just how easily hoodwinked the American public is.
Do we have THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of wounded, maimed and irreversibly damaged servicemen because of:
>>>Ansar al-Islam training camps were operating in Iraq. There were numerous reports of contact between al-Qaeda members and Iraqi officials. Doesn’t that indicate “some connection” between Saddam and al-Qaeda? I don’t see how it wouldn’t.
Is that the explanation you’d give to the greiving parents of the deceased? Is that the explanation you’d give to the double-amputees at Walter Reed Hospital?
>>>So, in your view, the Administration might actually have told the truth, but for practical purposes it lied
Bingo. This had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. This was a neo-con utopian scheme to try to change the map of the middle east, and make profits for American corporations.
Naomi Klein details this in this recent Harper’s Magazine article:
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2004/0927-Pillage.html
Now you can say I’m just some conspiracy guy run amuck, but LOOK AT WHAT WAS DONE in Iraq, and you tell me what this “war” was all about.
–Cobra
Cobra, I’m saying that Cheney has never from beginning to end connected Saddam Hussein with 9/11, and that your protest that Americans are too dumb to understand the differences among “Saddam sponsored terrorism,” “Saddam’s government had high-level contacts with al-Qaeda,” and “Saddam destroyed the WTC” is basically an argument against democratic government. I mean, are you saying you want to be governed by obvious morons? Or merely that you want the right people installed at the top, so that the obvious morons get the correct propaganda and therefore vote the right way?
You’d think a proponent of the common people could describe them a little more charitably.
As for the eeeevil neocons and their Utopian schemes: given the mess that is the Middle East, it would be nice if there were a success story in it, a democratic (or even slowly democratizing) country that wasn’t Israel. And yes, of course this was part of the rationale for war, and Bush said that over and over again.
But enough. I fear John is going to notice that this discussion is waaaay off-topic anyway, and cut it off.