Blunderful

In my first post on the VP debate, I evinced such awed admiration for the ballsiness of Cheney's lies that I discounted the possibility that they would come back to haunt him. On second thought, though, there's nothing terribly brave about a man who is utterly habituated to lying without any repercussions continuing to lie some more.

But Cheney told whoppers. The least substantive, though likely the most damaging, is his claim that the first time he met Edwards was last night. The left blogosphere found indubitable proof of the contrary within an hour of the debate's end. Since Chris Matthews and his fellow hardballers were apparently the only pundits to quickly rule the debate a major Cheney victory, it would only make sense for MSNBC to wildly overplay the significance of this fib.

More substantively, Cheney claimed never to have suggested and Iraq-9/11 connection. But there are reams of video footage and documentary evidence that contradict him. In fact, the Democrats have already put together a fairly damning video on the debate, entitled, appropriately, "Cheney vs. Reality." The impressive thing about this is how directly it piggybacks on the Republicans' anti-Gore strategy in 2000.

Third gaffe: Cheney's only response to Edwards contentions about Halliburton was to direct viewers to factcheck.com. That's a redirect link to George Soros' blog, where the headline is "President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values." I'm guessing that Cheney meant to refer us to factcheck.org, which has at least as many links to Bush-Cheney distortions as Kerry-Edwards.