daylight debate recap

Those of us watching at my house felt it was about a tie, although I thought that Edwards' bluff-calling gave him the edge, not to mention that brutal laundry list of great programs (like Headstart) that Cheney voted against through the years. Of course, Edwards also dropped the ball on the chance to distinguish himself from his opponent, and even muffed the softball about "flip-flopping" that could have been a chance to say "Changing your position in response to new facts is just intelligent. To do otherwise is stubborn shortsightedness." What are the responses around the web?

• The polls:
  1. Quick web polls: AOL shows a tie; MSNBC shows Edwards 60%; CBS shows Edwards 80%; Fox shows a tie; CNN avoids the "win" issue by asking whether it changed your vote... (apparently they switched after their first poll showed a large Edwards lead)
     
  2. More serious polls: Kos summarizes the good news, but let's just say that both CBS and ABC conducted quick phone polls post-debate that gave Edwards or Cheney, respectively, a 10% margin. So call it a tie; however, Andrew Sullivan (rabid on the right) said he had to turn away from the TV screen, so there's good karma out there.
     
• Kos catches Cheney in a lie on his "I run the Senate and I've never met you before" zinger, with a photo of the two at a National Prayer Breakfast. oops!
  
• A lot of people are noting that Cheney hardly mentioned Bush at all. Perhaps he's forgotten that the audience always watches the puppet...
  

Seems pretty good. Lots of discussion of the amazing rate of Cheney lies, and even the mainstream press seems to have felt that some fact-checking was in order: the Washington Post documents Cheney's making the connection between Iraq and Al Quaida on numerous occasions (and it also corrects other misstatements by both candidates). At the very least, Edwards showed that he had dignity and a grasp of the issues; at best, he scored some good blows against the Bush-Cheney disinformation factory and got a few zingers on Cheney himself.

I'm happy with this. Bring on the next round!

Update: my lunchtime reading hit this nice roundup by Kos of the general media take on the debates. Looks like Edwards got done what he needed to -- showed his serious side and brought out Cheney's inner grouch.

For the hard-core, you can get a blow-by-blow analysis of the whole debate by a columnist at the National Review. He's rooting for the incumbents, but assesses the effectiveness of various lines and points with a great deal of insight, and concedes that the new guy looked pretty good, maybe better...

Update 2: heh, can't resist a pointer to this gem, for Simpsons fans....