THE SWING HASN’T SWUNG YET

My contribution to the commentary on tonight’s vice-presidential debate–you can read better running commentary over at OTB and PoliBlog:

I came in thinking that Dick Cheney was a cold technocrat and John Edwards was a pleasant but puffy politico. I saw nothing tonight that changed my opinion about either man. Cheney nearly lost me with his “the first time I ever met you was tonight on this stage” comment–come on. You spend one whole day a week there. I’m willing to bet there’s lots of Democratic senators Cheney’s never met. And I think it was wise of Edwards to point out how Cheney voted against Head Start and the plastic-weapons ban–since Cheney didn’t refute what he said, I’d score that a solid body blow for Edwards.

But that’s not to say that I thought Cheney did poorly–to the contrary, I thought he did extremely well. He didn’t really take the Haliburton/no WMD bait Edwards kept tossing out. I think the administration is very vulnerable on this issue, so Cheney was wise to stay away from it. Cheney also mentioned one of my favorite issues–small-business development–and generally did a better job than Edwards in convincing me that he and Bush would do a better job of growing the economy than Kerry and Edwards would.

It was clear to me that both Cheney and Edwards welcomed the gay marriage issue as though it were flatulence in a crowded elevator. Cheney presented a much more logically consistent view than Edwards did, though it was apparent to me that he really wanted to say something like “the President and I disagree on this issue.”

In the end, here’s the impression that I was left with: It’s clear that Cheney is the brain power of this administration. I don’t like the “Dubya is dumb” meme–while I think the President is clearly not a mental giant, I don’t think he’s two IQ points away from needing to be watered twice a week and periodically transplanted to a larger pot. Cheney, I think, does the heavy lifting for this administration.

Full honesty requires me to say that, in fact, Cheney is one of the two people whose non-reappointment would cause me to commit right now to voting for Bush. Ashcroft is the other. I can admire the job Cheney did tonight, but ideologically, I don’t think he and I have much common ground. Something about him says he’s one of these “America’s destiny is empire” types. That’s really not who I want close to my president, particularly as one of his real policy advisors.

But I left with a bigger sense that I can’t imagine Edwards advising Kerry about anything at all.

THE GLOBAL TEST

If Kerry means by “global test” the idea that we’ll make the best possible case to the world before acting pre-emptively, why don’t he and Edwards just say that? It still sounds to me like France and Germany get to stamp an imprimatur on US military actions.

MAYBE NOW HE’LL GET SOME RESPECT

So long, Al Czermak:

LOS ANGELES - Rodney Dangerfield, the bug-eyed comic whose self-deprecating one-liners brought him stardom in clubs, television and movies and made his lament “I don’t get no respect” a catchphrase, died Tuesday. He was 82.

Dangerfield, who fell into a coma after undergoing heart surgery, died at 1:20 p.m., said publicist Kevin Sasaki. Dangerfield had a heart valve replaced Aug. 25 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center.

While he was never a favorite of mine, Rodney Dangerfield made some movies which made me laugh real, real hard. Will we ever see another one-liner comedian like him again?