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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
VP Debate Wrap-Up
Aired October 06, 2004 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, everyone. Well, we said a few days ago the debaters have debated, the spinners are spinning. Actually, it seems to us the spinners are working quite hard tonight. The debate had a bit more edge, to our ear, than the one last week. And if there was a knockout punch thrown or landed, we didn't hear it or see it. My guess -- lots of others will weigh in -- is that not a lot of minds changed tonight. And given how soon the two presidential candidates meet again, come Friday, the story itself has a short shelf life.
Right now, it's fresh as fresh baked bread, so to "The Whip" we go. First up, our senior White House correspondent, covering the president, John King. John, a headline from your side.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a bit of a spring in the Bush-Cheney campaign tonight. They think this debate went a lot better than the last one. The vice president's mission tonight was to make this election much more about leadership than just about Iraq, and the Bush-Cheney camp thinks, at least for this night, he succeeded -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thanks. Next to the Kerry camp, how they see things, Candy Crowley once again dealing with those guys and those women. Candy, a headline from you.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the bottom line from the Kerry campaign is that John Edwards did what he had to do. That may not sound like a great, ringing applause line, but it is good enough.
BROWN: Thank you. Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, with us. Jeff, a headline as you saw the debate.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Aaron, this was a debate in which both candidates had their moments. I think you are right in saying that this was not a debate that is going to radically alter the race, but when you come back to me, I will offer you one possible notion that may sound strange, that the Cheney strength may turn out to be something that the Bush campaign will not be entirely happy with -- Aaron.
BROWN: I love when you tease me that way, Jeff. Thank you. Finally, to the facts, and there were some tricky enough at any time of the night. CNN's Bill Schneider and staff working with him tonight, helping to separate truth from debating points. So Bill, a headline. WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Aaron, it's all about money. How much is the Iraq war costing? And who would bear the burden of tax hikes if Kerry gets elected? Those are some big factual disputes from this debate.
BROWN: We'll get to you, as well, Bill. All the rest, thank you. Also coming up on the program tonight, the man who ran Iraq after the war says the administration failed -- failed -- to put enough troops there. It was an explosive comment at a most important moment. Also, could a voter registration form mix-up put the Sunshine State -- or should it be the hurricane state -- in the spotlight again? And at the end of the hour, as with every hour -- hours -- morning papers.
All that in more in the hour ahead. We begin, of course, with the debate, a proxy battle, to be sure, for the top of the ticket, but also deeply in the moment and as powerful as two passionate and talented debaters can make it. Anybody who missed it missed something -- or at least, most of it. It may have slowed down a little towards the end. Several takes on the evening coming up in the hour ahead, but first a recap from CNN's Judy Woodruff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): No punches pulled around this debate table.
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: That was a complete distortion of my record. I know that's not going to come as a shock.
RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Senator, frankly, you have a record in the Senate that's not very distinguished.
WOODRUFF: Dick Cheney and John Edwards trading stinging barbs throughout a 90-minute showdown, their only debate of the campaign, the vice president seeking to portray the North Carolina senator as inexperienced and ineffective...
CHENEY: Your home town newspaper has taken to calling you "Senator Gone." You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.
WOODRUFF: ... Edwards trying to paint Cheney as a servant of big business who lied to the American people about the war in Iraq.
EDWARDS: Now, I want the American people to hear this very clearly. Listen carefully to what the vice president is saying because there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11 -- period.
WOODRUFF: Iraq and the war on terror dominated the first half of the debate, with the candidates echoing charges leveled by their running mates. CHENEY: You're not credible on Iraq because of the enormous inconsistencies that John Kerry and you have cited time after time after time during the course of the campaign.
WOODRUFF: But other issues found their way into the discussion, like the Bush-backed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, something Cheney, who has a lesbian daughter, opposes.
EDWARDS: It's nothing but a political tool, and it's being used in an effort to divide this country.
WOODRUFF: The vice president was given an opportunity to respond to the comment. He declined. What Cheney did was fire back on another close-to-home matter, Halliburton.
EDWARDS: When the vice president was CEO of Halliburton, they took care of -- took advantage of every off-shore loophole available.
CHENEY: The reason they keep trying to attack Halliburton is because they want to obscure their own record.
WOODRUFF: And what of the reaction shots, those pesky cutaways that bedeviled the president in his first debate with John Kerry. Tonight, both men kept their faces straight and their noses in their notes.
Judy Woodruff, CNN, Cleveland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That was a quick take on how it went tonight, and now what's going on is the spinners are having at it, trying to lay out how they saw it. And the candidates are out at rallies and the like. Senator Kerry, who we presume watched the debate, is surprisingly -- not surprisingly -- proud of his running mate, calling him a short time ago from Colorado, where Senator Kerry is preparing for Friday's debate, called to say congratulations and let the cameras in to witness it.
Meantime, Senator Edwards went from the debate back to the stump, addressing a rally not far from Case Western University out in Cleveland, Ohio. The vice president went to a rally, too, speaking to Bush-Cheney supporters at an armory in Cleveland.
On now to the impressions of the night as seen by each side. John King with the Bush-Kerry -- rather, Bush-Cheney camp, and Candy Crowley with the Kerry-Edwards side. Good to see you all.
John, a question to start. It seemed to me one of the things the vice president was trying to do tonight was to say, in reaction to last week's debate, 90 minutes, 90 good minutes does not a record make, does not a policy make, does not a president make.
KING: Exactly right, Aaron, and some Republicans privately tonight saying something they probably dare not say in public, that they think the vice president did a better job tonight than the president himself did last week. We know the president was watching back at the White House residence. It's not rocket science, from the Bush campaign perspective. They think they win the election if the threshold question on November 2 is leadership in the war on terror. They think it's a much more dicey proposition if the threshold question is the war in Iraq and whether you think that's a good thing and what you think of the president's management of it.
So the vice president's challenge tonight was to defend and explain the war in Iraq, and he did so by saying that in the post-9/11 world, presented with intelligence suggesting Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that the president did the right thing and that the administration is adjusting to the circumstances on the ground now. Having made that explanation, he then immediately turned to question the credibility and the qualifications of the Democrats to be commander-in-chief.
In doing so, as we saw a bit of in Judy's piece, Vice President Cheney saying Senator Kerry has voted on the wrong side of national security throughout his career in the Senate, has had conflicting positions on the war in Iraq, the vice president saying that that switch on Iraq, in his view, was because of political pressure, and he laid out what he believed the consequences could and would be.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: We've seen a situation in which first they voted to commit the troops, send them to war, John Edwards and John Kerry. Then they came back and when the question was whether or not to provide them with the resources they needed -- body armor, spare parts, ammunition -- they voted against it. I couldn't figure out why that happened initially, and then I looked and figured out that what was happening was Howard Dean was making major progress in the Democratic primaries, running away with the primaries based on an anti-war record. So they, in effect, decided they would cast an anti- war vote, and they voted against the troops. Now, if they couldn't stand up under the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to al Qaeda?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now, both campaigns believe people vote for the person at the top of the ticket, so the vice president spending most of his time focusing on John Kerry, again saying his record in the Senate proves, in the vice president's view, that he was on the wrong side on national security, conflicting views on Iraq. But Aaron, the vice president also did talk about his own experience in public service and his own role in the administration in the hours and days after the 9/11 attacks and then turning to Senator Edwards at one point, saying that his record, in the vice president's view, was not very distinguished, the vice president clearly trying to convince the American people that the man who is vice president should matter more, at least a little more in this election, and that he has much more experience for the job -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thanks. Candy, the goal, I assume, for the -- for Senator Edwards, at least in part -- I mean, he has to do what all vice presidents have to do, which is defend his guy. But he also, because he is the least known, has to defend himself. Are they at least -- are they convinced privately that he held his own?
CROWLEY: They absolutely believe that he held his own. The -- John Edwards himself is described by aides as pumped up. You saw that very public display of affection from -- from the No. 1 on the ticket, calling John Edwards in front of the cameras, saying, You did a great job. They believe that going into this, John Edwards did have to answer this question. Is he experienced enough to be the man who is a heartbeat away from the presidency? They believe that not only did John Edwards answer that question yes, but he also brought into question just exactly what sort of experience George Bush and John -- and Dick Cheney bring to the ticket.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARDS: The vice president and president like to talk about their experience on the campaign trail. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Millions have fallen into poverty. Family incomes are down, while the cost of everything is going up. Medical costs up to the highest they've ever been over the last four years. We have this mess in Iraq. Mr. Vice President, I don't think the country can take four more years of this kind of experience.
(END VIDEO
CROWLEY: The Edwards people are also quite happy. They believe that, in fact, they scored a couple of hits just by bringing up the name Halliburton. A lot of focus groups have shown that just bringing up that name, even if people can't describe what went on with Halliburton, they know it's a bad thing. In the end, this debate was not unlike that doctors' motto, First do no harm. And as far as the Kerry campaign is concerned, John Edwards did no harm and did himself some good -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, if he did harm, it went -- honestly, it went past me. I didn't see it. Just compare your -- you were dealing with many of the same people a week ago, after the first presidential campaign -- I think I asked you on a 1-to-10 what the -- sort of how the mood was. How is the mood, by comparison, tonight? Are they less ebullient than they were a week ago?
CROWLEY: Yes. I mean, they're not un-ebullient? Is that -- is that a word there?
BROWN: Yes.
CROWLEY: They're not...
BROWN: Giddy.
CROWLEY: It's not the same. It's -- they're not giddy. They are definitely not giddy. They needed a solid performance. They think they got a solid performance, but they are certainly not as excited as they were. But there was more at stake in the last one, and they think they met -- more than met their expectations in the presidential debate. This one, the expectations were that, A, they knew he was a great debater because they knew that he was very good on the stump, very good as a trial lawyer. But you know, the fact is that they don't -- it's not something that they thought, This is make or break. And while they didn't think that on the first presidential debate, it was pretty close to it. So the adrenaline rush here afterwards is certainly not as high.
BROWN: Candy, thanks a lot. A long night for you. Candy Crowley, John King, who are covering the candidates. Jeff Greenfield takes a step back from all of this, tries to watch both sides, see how they manage the moment. And Jeff joins us now from Cleveland, as well. So Jeff, how did they manage the moment?
GREENFIELD: Well, I think both candidates were playing to their strength. That is, Dick Cheney, after a beginning that even his supporters thought was a little bit uncertain, zeroed right in on his target, and that is John Kerry. And it's the message Dick Cheney has been carrying all year long. It has been put in the bluntest way, Vote for John Kerry and die. But the more correct way to put it is, You cannot trust this critical war on terror to a president this inconsistent.
Here's an example of what Dick Cheney had to say tonight on that.
Well, I guess there isn't anything that I wanted to -- that we had. I thought we had pulled a tape. But it's reflected in what John King showed you, that basically, what Dick Cheney was arguing repeatedly was, This is an issue of credibility. You can't have a 90- minute debate to make up for a 20-year record, even went back to John Kerry's first congressional run back in 1972, when he talked about getting the United Nations as the guidepost for American intervention.
By contrast, Senator Edwards was much stronger, as you might expect, on the domestic side. And in this regard, Aaron, he was aided by the fact that Dick Cheney's focus, really ever since 9/11, has been the war on terror, the war in Iraq. When Dick -- when John Edwards indicted the Kerry -- I'm sorry -- the Bush administration for increased poverty, for the loss of jobs, the answers that Dick Cheney gave in this area were much more pro forma than his much more resolute attack on John Kerry's record. And so when John Edwards was talking about people sitting at the kitchen table, ordinary middle-class people, that, I think, is where Edwards gained the most.
One more point, Aaron, and I alluded to this in "The Whip." The fact that the Republicans are saying that Dick Cheney did better than the president raises an interesting possible problem. If people see George W. Bush as less imposing than Dick Cheney -- that is, if they see Dick Cheney as the man behind the curtain running things, and the Bush-Cheney campaign is saying Cheney did better than Bush, I'm wondering whether, to some extent, that reinforces that image that President Bush isn't the real leader of the Bush-Cheney administration, Aaron.
BROWN: A couple things quickly. Does it change in any way what we might expect come Friday?
GREENFIELD: I don't think so. I think it tees up Friday as a really big deal.
BROWN: And -- I'm sorry. And do you...
GREENFIELD: No, please.
BROWN: Would you expect it gives us an indication on the Bush side that the president will be a little bit edgier, a little bit more, or maybe a lot more aggressive in his attacks on Senator Kerry than he was the other night?
GREENFIELD: I don't think -- I don't think that's as easy in a town meeting debate as in a formal debate. In fact, what I think more likely is that you will see a president who does -- who's going to be very much on notice that he's not to look testy, tired, exasperated or disgusted. I'm sure they've made that point very clear to the president. And because there's an audience asking questions, and because you have to respond to those questions by at least appearing to respond to a regular citizen, it's much harder to be aggressive about your opponent when you're doing it -- channeling it by answering a question of a citizen. So I'm not sure I agree with that part, but I certainly think that the message that the president gets across is, I am the resolute leader that most of you thought I was a month ago, before you saw me in this debate, and I know how to protect this country. But I think there has to be a certain gentleness about it because he can't turn right to John Kerry and make that charge, Aaron.
BROWN: Jeff, thank...
GREENFIELD: Interesting format.
BROWN: Yes, it is. Jeff, thank you. This is a full week. The news cycle here on this story only lasts probably another day or so, and much of that will be consumed by trying to figure out what the facts were. Were there major misstatements of fact, as opposed to mild exaggerations, $188 billion versus $200 billion. I mean, you can argue about that sort of stuff, but were there major exaggerations of fact?
Bill Schneider and his team has been tasked, as they say, with figuring that all out. So Mr. Schneider, were there major errors of fact tonight?
SCHNEIDER: Well, there were some. Dick Cheney said Edwards was wrong when he claimed that 90 percent of the coalition casualties in Iraq have been Americans. Cheney said the correct figure is closer to 50 percent. But according to the Pentagon and the Central Command, 88.5 percent of the coalition military fatalities in Iraq since the war began have been Americans. Cheney was changing the base to include losses by Iraqi security forces. Edwards was referring to the coalition forces that invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein.
Another point. Edwards said the U.S. has spent $200 billion and counting on the Iraq war. The Office of Management and Budget says the cost through September 20, '04, has actually been $120 billion. The $200 billion figure includes money allocated for the coming fiscal year, some of which is actually earmarked for Afghanistan. So the claim that the United States is spending 90 percent of the cost in Iraq appears to have been a bit of an exaggeration by Mr. Edwards.
And finally, this. Dick Cheney said 900,000 small businesses that create new jobs will be hit by Kerry's tax increase. Listen to what the vice president said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: A great man of our small businesses pay taxes under the personal income taxes, rather than the corporate rate. And about 900,000 small businesses will be hit if you do, in fact, do what they want to do with the top bracket. That's not smart because 7 out of 10 new jobs in America are created by small businesses.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHNEIDER: Now, the Tax Policy Center tells us that only 471,000 small businesses would actually face a tax increase from the Kerry plan, and those that file tax returns as individuals include a lot of so-called sideline businesses, such as occasional rentals of yachts and condos. Most of those who pay higher taxes under Kerry's plan are individuals who are not primarily business owners, and a lot of them -- a huge number, they say -- have no employees at all.
BROWN: Oh, that's a good one to fight over. I want to go back to the casualties because, actually, the -- here's how I heard it, and tell me if I heard it right. Senator Edwards says 90 percent of the coalition casualties -- that's the universe he's talking about, the coalition casualties -- have been American. The vice president answers 54 percent of the total casualties -- not the coalition casualties, but the total number of people who died -- are actually American.
They are, as I heard it -- I mean, assuming that they're -- both numbers are correct, they both could be right. The vice president essentially responded to a different question.
SCHNEIDER: That's right. And he also specifically said that 90 percent figure is wrong. That 90 percent figure wasn't wrong. Cheney is simply -- the vice president is simply using a different figure because he's including Iraqi security forces, which were not part of the coalition. And it would be -- it's an odd usage to include the Iraqi losses alongside the losses of those who invaded Iraq.
BROWN: Well, it does -- it does help you reduce the number a little bit. There were a number of allegations having to do with Halliburton, that it had paid millions of dollars in fines, that it was under investigation, that in the current moment, while it's under investigation, it's still being paid the full weight of its contract. Have we had a chance to check all those out?
SCHNEIDER: Well, we have looked into it. We don't have a definitive answer yet. We're going to report on that tomorrow. But the vice president specifically said he knows that that's a smokescreen, those charges are false. From everything we've seen, those charges are true, and some of them have been -- were under investigation during Cheney's watch. But we are looking much more closely into that. We're not entirely sure what the vice president meant when he said he knows those charges are false.
BROWN: Well, I think I know what he meant when he said, I know the charges are false. I think he meant, I know the charges are false. That's my take.
SCHNEIDER: Well, he said he knows...
BROWN: Oh, OK.
SCHNEIDER: ... Edwards knows the charges are false.
BROWN: Oh, what's -- well, we'll work on the facts on that. Bill, thank you very much.
SCHNEIDER: Sure.
BROWN: These things, at some point, ought to be about facts, and it's -- you have to check them, and it's hard to do it in 20 minutes or a half hour or an hour, so we're working on it. We'll have more on this tomorrow, I guarantee it.
Ahead on the program tonight, what would have been, I think, the lead story on any other day around here, the former U.S. administrator in Iraq puts the White House, the Pentagon and lots of others on the defense today. And a voter registration mix-up in the state of Florida has some voters in the Sunshine State outraged again.
We are pleased to once again say, From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, all of those, aren't they, they're a reminder that Iraq is more than a collection of debating points, something we lose sight of on days like today. There were several developments in Iraq today. American and Iraqi forces launched an operation in Babil province, in the central part of the country. So far, they've taken control of a bridge over the Euphrates River used by the insurgents moving in and out of Fallujah. About 3,000 Marines, soldiers and Iraqi national guardsmen, some combination, reported taking part in that.
Meanwhile, insurgents took aim at the U.S. convoy in Ramadi, one soldier, seven Iraqi civilians wounded when a roadside bomb went off. A lot worse in Mosul today, where a car bomb went off at a crowded traffic circle. Three civilians died, four U.S. soldiers wounded, this on a day when 10 police officers were gunned down farther south in the country.
And with that all as a backdrop, Iraq's interim prime minister spoke to the country's National Council, a much darker message than he delivered to Congress when he was in Washington a short time ago. The terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the man the Bush administration has long portrayed as al Qaeda's link to Iraq, is now the focus of a new CIA report that surfaced today. The Bush administration has maintained that Iraq provided a safe haven for Mr. Zarqawi before the U.S. invasion. The CIA now says the evidence of that is inconclusive on whether Saddam knowingly harbored Zarqawi. This assessment surfacing as the former civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, handed the Kerry campaign a major gift. Here's CNN Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer now admits what critics have been saying for a year-and-a-half: The U.S. did not send enough troops to Iraq to keep the peace. Bremer is quoted in a press release as saying, "We never had enough troops on the ground," that from an insurance group Bremer addressed Monday. And in remarks at DePauw University last month that drew little attention at the time, Bremer went even further, telling a student forum, "The one thing that would have improved the situation would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout."
Bremer's second-guessing is political dynamite and was seized on by John Kerry to buttress his argument the war plan was flawed.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Now Paul Bremer is saying what a terrible mistake it was. The president needs to take accountability for his own judgments.
MCINTYRE: In a clarifying statement, Bremer says there are now enough troops in Iraq, and insists his comments refer to his belief when he arrived in May of 2003 that more U.S. or Iraqi forces were needed to contain looting in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. At the time Defense Secretary Rumsfeld dismissed the looting, saying, "War is imperfect and stuff happens."
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's untidy. And freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things!
MCINTYRE: Bremer says the U.S. paid a big price for not stopping the looting because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness. It's not clear whether he argued for more troops either with military commanders or with Rumsfeld. But he said, "Although I raised this issue a number of times with our government, I should have been even more insistent."
Rumsfeld issued his own clarifying statement after this exchange Monday at a New York speech.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Secretary, what exactly was the connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda?
RUMSFELD: I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.
MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld now says he was misunderstood and that he's acknowledged links between Iraq and al Qaeda since September of 2002.
(on camera): The Bush campaign acknowledged that Ambassador Bremer differed with commanders in the field and said that's his right. The White House refused to say if Bremer ever asked President Bush directly for more troops, insisting the president relied on the Pentagon and military commanders to determine troop requirements.
Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: All right, some of the news background of the day. "Time" magazine's Joe Klein is in Cleveland. He's been in the thick of the debate tonight and the spin of the debate tonight. It's always good to see Joe. The vice president, to me, successfully dodged both those questions tonight. He really didn't address much the Rumsfeld statement, and he didn't much address the Bremer statement, both of which are potentially, I would argue, quite damaging to the president, if they are not dealt with in some way.
JOE KLEIN, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, I don't know whether he successfully dodged them. He did dodge them, though, and these are major issues. You know, it's -- it goes to the heart of why this situation in Iraq is a tremendous mess right now. But there is danger here for John Kerry and John Edwards because if they are saying that we never had enough troops there, and the next question is, Do we have enough troops there now, they are on the brink of saying maybe we should have some more troops there. Or at least, that's a logical question to ask them.
Seems to me, in talking to military people and intelligence people, that neither campaign is telling the truth about this crucial issue, which is that if we're going to salvage the situation there or have any hope of salvaging it, we're going to need more American troops.
BROWN: My goodness. I hate to be the one to say it again, but it sounds, for those of us of a certain age, an awful lot like the way politicians talked before elections during Vietnam. Be that as it may...
KLEIN: That's exactly right. With one difference. There were no greater strategic consequences to Vietnam. When we lost Vietnam, it -- nothing terrible happened to the United States. If we lose in Iraq, if we have to withdraw, we are leaving, A, chaos, B, a possible al Qaeda state, and C, a possible civil war. The stakes here, in terms of geostrategic issues, could not be higher. This is a huge, huge issue.
BROWN: Couldn't agree more. Quickly, a couple points on the debate. In 10 seconds, were you surprised by anything?
KLEIN: Well, I thought Edwards did better than I expected. I thought Cheney defended himself very well. But in some -- you know, to some extent, no one really figured that Edwards could go toe-to-toe with Cheney on this stuff, and I think he did.
Cheney made a really important point, though, when he criticized Kerry and Edwards for essentially dissing the Iraqis, who are fighting for their own freedom, which they've done a couple of times in the last few weeks. That's very sloppy on Kerry and Edwards' part, and it was a really strong point by Vice President Cheney.
BROWN: It struck me that, in some ways, there were two debates going on and that the vice president probably won on points on the foreign policy/Iraq side. And that Edwards won on points, perhaps a little bit more, on the domestic side of the debate.
KLEIN: Well, I think that there were -- there were weaknesses on both sides. I really don't think that the vice president won on the foreign policy side because of the Bremer question and because of the reality here.
The reality is that Iraq is a mess, and the Bush administration hasn't come up with -- hasn't even begun to acknowledge it. So that puts them in a difficult position.
He was certainly much stronger than the president was, and he certainly made a strong case about Kerry's record over the last 20, 25 years. But still, the Bush administration has to answer the situation on the ground, and they haven't come up with a good answer for it.
BROWN: Joe, good to see you. As you'll be traveling on...
KLEIN: Great to see you, Aaron.
BROWN: ... traveling on to St. Louis, and hopefully we'll talk on Friday. Thanks a lot.
Coming up on the program, more on the debate. "The Brown Table" joins us. And later, "Tough Crowd's" Colin Quinn on the debate, as well. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Our "Brown Table" buddies are scattered across the map tonight. Terry Neal, WashingtonPost.com, is in West Palm Beach. Nina Easton of "The Boston Globe" at home in Washington. Well, she's not literally at home, I don't think. And "Wall Street Journal's" John Harwood in Cleveland for all -- that's to see all.
Terry, pretty much the consensus is it was a draw. Was it an interesting draw? Did it capture people, do you think?
TERRY NEAL, WASHINGTONPOST.COM: It was a very interesting draw. I thought it was much more interesting debate than last week. I thought these guys were much -- much better debaters.
I would actually say that, if you were to judge this based on who had the most memorable lines and that sort of thing, I would give a slight edge to Dick Cheney.
But I would say in terms of expectations, the fact that a lot of people didn't think that John Edwards would be able to stand toe to toe with him, I think that John Edwards did a good job. He more than held his own, especially on Iraq.
I thought that, you know, people were expecting him to just dominate on the domestic policy portion. But I thought he did a pretty good job holding -- holding the vice president's feet to the fire on that -- on that critical issue of Iraq.
BROWN: Nina, I think we can all talk about this tomorrow, because that's what we do and that's what you guys write about. And then by the next day, we'll be writing about preparations for Friday anyway. So it's pretty much a one-day story. Does it matter?
NINA EASTON, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Yes, it matters to some extent. I mean, certainly, President Bush was kind of the outliner. He brought -- he brought outlines to the table and, I think, got criticized for it.
Cheney showed himself as a real policy guy. It's interesting. You know, of course, conventional wisdom -- yes, John Edwards held his own. He overcame that image that he had of sort of a game show host, lightweight. So he held his own, and he did quite well.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to meet Vice President Dick Cheney in a dark alley. Boy, some of those punches, you saw them coming, when he said that -- that Edwards -- you know, if you can't stand up to pressure from Howard Dean, how do you stand up to pressure from al Qaeda? I saw that one coming.
But then there were ones you didn't see coming, like, well, I don't have to talk about my story as, you know, modest beginnings. And of course, a criticism of John Edwards always going on in the campaign trail...
BROWN: Yes.
EASTON: ... as the son of a mill worker. So I thought in terms of, you know, counterpunching, Dick Cheney, oh, boy. He was tough.
BROWN: Yes. I think he wields a stiletto about as well...
EASTON: He does.
BROWN: ... as anyone out there. You're not really aware it's coming, and then the next thing you know, it's buried in your ribs.
John, if you were writing the lead, and in fact, you may be writing the lead for tomorrow -- I'm not sure -- in the "Journal," what would it say?
JOHN HARWOOD, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": I think you had, Aaron, a real battle of experience versus empathy. And it played out both in the words and in the body language. You know, the body language was the most interesting thing in last night's -- last week's debate.
Tonight, it was quite interesting as well, but it was sort of positive for both men -- Dick Cheney, very sober, cerebral, matter of fact. They made that case in the closing where he said, you know, "I've served many presidents." And this is a unique point in our history. This is a threat like we've never seen. If you're an undecided voter out there, especially women, that might be a reassuring quality to him, to see this older guy right here talked to that way.
John Edwards, on the other hand, was somebody who was connecting on a guy level, tell kids at the table stories about families. And he made powerful arguments about fresh start on both the economy and on health care, and on Iraq as well.
So what -- which qualities those voters are going to settle on, it's going to be one of the fascinating things that will play out over the next...
EASTON: And it's interesting...
BROWN: Go ahead.
EASTON: I was going to say, Dick Cheney, when he goes out on the campaign trail, he brings his family with him. So you've got Lynne Cheney; you've got his daughter and you've got his granddaughters, these darling little girls who come out on stage.
And then -- so that humanizes him. But it also enables him to talk about protecting the next generation against -- in the war on terrorism. So he's able to connect both of those on the campaign trail.
BROWN: Terry, last word. Did John Edwards, if it matters. I think it probably does somewhat. Did John Edwards convince people, do you think that me -- well, I don't want to put it that way. Should it -- should it be necessary that he should be president?
NEAL: Well, you know, I think he did. I mean, I think that he -- like I said, I think he stood toe-to-toe. He was able to -- he had a -- he had a clear, concise message. He had a good grasp of the facts. And he made it clear that, you know, you don't have to have a 30-year-old, 31-year long resume in politics to be -- to be a good leader.
I thought he did what he needed to do. I thought we could have done better in some points.
But what -- I think that he certainly held his own with a guy who's got to be the toughest debater that the Republican Party has. So in that respect, I think he did -- he did seem a bit less nervous to me than he did in his acceptance speech.
BROWN: All of you will see Friday night, I hope, from St. Louis or wherever you happen to be. We're going to make you work late on Friday. Thank you all.
NEAL: No problem.
HARWOOD: Thanks. You bet.
BROWN: Still to come on the program, Robert George of the "New York Post" joins us to give us his take on the event in Cleveland tonight. We'll take a break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Robert George is with up tonight. He's a conservative voice at a red meat paper. I think that's fair to -- he's a conservative voice at a red meat paper. I think that's fair -- fair way to describe the "New York Post." Also a lot of fun to read.
He calls them as he sees them, there and here.
It's nice to see you, not -- I actually -- it was quite tense there for awhile. It was a pretty edgy moment. Someone, I don't remember who it was -- I was coming up. I was reading. Said, it's as close to the civil war or a street fight as you can come sitting down and on cable.
I mean, there was a tension there.
ROBERT GEORGE, NEW YORK POST: Yes. Absolutely. And I think -- I mean, I think, you know, Cheney, you know, came -- wanting to come on as -- as the uber adult. You know, he want to be -- he wanted A, he wanted to set any perceptions -- right, any perceptions that had developed after the president's less than stellar performance last week.
And at the same time, I think he also wanted to show the distance, in terms of his experience, between him and John Edwards.
BROWN: Did -- Jeff -- Jeff made a point earlier. He said there's a -- perhaps a danger in that if -- it's an interesting trap. If Dick Cheney does too well, he kind of proves a point of the critics, which is that he really is the hand that runs the puppet.
GEORGE: There is some of that, but I think -- I think Cheney was -- I think Cheney struck the right balance tonight.
If you noticed, most of -- most of his attack lines, if you will, went specifically to Kerry. Occasionally, he would refer to Kerry -- Kerry and -- Kerry and Edwards.
BROWN: At one point, he said about Edwards, "Frankly, Senator, your record is not very distinguished." That was pretty direct.
GEORGE: That's true. Well, that's true. And he also -- he also did -- one of the other good lines was this is -- "This is the first time I've met John Edwards."
BROWN: Which in fact was not true.
GEORGE: It was not -- is that true? Is that true?
BROWN: Yes. I think we -- I think we're about five minutes away from actually showing the picture, but I think I can say to you that was not true. But it was a heck of a good line. GEORGE: A heck of a good line. And as was the Howard -- as was the Howard Dean line.
BROWN: Yes.
GEORGE: I mean, I think the point is if -- if success for the vice presidential debate is elevating -- elevating the No. 1 person on the ticket and taking down the No. 1 on the other guy, on the other side, I think -- I think Cheney ended up being more successful at that than Edwards was on the other side.
BROWN: You and I have had a number of conversations off the air about Iraq and how much problem do you think that -- do you think Mr. Bremer gave the president in his remarks in West Virginia and Secretary Rumsfeld gave the president in his remarks on al Qaeda?
GEORGE: I think -- I think they -- I think they gave him some serious troubles. Now, whether those -- whether those comments are going to get lost in between the debate tonight, the president's extensive address tomorrow, we don't know.
But I mean, I think -- I think one of the problems that this administration has to keep an eye out for is -- is not -- not just the fact that Bremer is saying something that contradicts what had been said before or give some kind of strength to what Kerry is saying.
It's sometimes a problem that this administration is increasingly not speaking with one voice. As if -- discipline had been the watchword of this administration for all the last three years.
And you saw it -- you saw it about a week or so ago when -- when Armitage, Powell and Rumsfeld all had different views on -- on how elections would run. And that shows -- that's problematic for one -- for an administration that wants reelection.
BROWN: Good to see you again.
GEORGE: Thank you.
BROWN: See you again soon. Robert George of the "New York Post" and others.
Ahead tonight, "Tough Crowd's" Colin Quinn joins us on the debate. "Morning Papers" still coming up, a quick look at those. And much more. Well, not much more, but some more. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When you're batting cleanup, as we are tonight, you have the luxury of being first at bat in the next game up, which is this news cycle and most others. Late night comedy gets a fair take on these. And no doubt, the debate will be part of that.
Colin Quinn is the host of Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd," while it lasts. He's with us tonight. COLIN QUINN, HOST, "TOUGH CROWD": That's correct.
BROWN: Nice to see you, sir.
QUINN: Thank you, Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you.
A lot of yucks in the thing tonight?
QUINN: Well, it was kind of, you know. I mean, it wasn't the funniest thing. I mean, it was a little scary at times.
I mean, what scared me the most was when he goes, "You know, Kerry voted 600 times for this." We have a system where these guys are voting 600 times for things and we don't think there's something -- maybe something's being wasted, time wise?
It's psychotic. And they kept accusing -- just the fact that they were both right, and said, "Well, you voted for that."
"You voted for it, too."
"No, you did."
And they've all voted for, like, the most horrible things, you know?
BROWN: So at one point in the debate, this is funny how small things in American politics become big deals. At one point in the debate -- just roll this tape -- the vice president says he had never met until that night the senator.
QUINN: Right.
BROWN: In fact, there's John Kerry (sic) looking a bit like the fifth Beatle, I think, in that picture. And this was in Cleveland. This was a prayer breakfast. Is that what it was? And how long ago was it? It was 2001.
So, A, in fact, he had met him and was sitting reasonably close to him. And tomorrow, though, there'll be a fair amount of talk about the fact that, while it was a very good zinger, it wasn't true.
Not exactly the biggest issue in American politics.
QUINN: That was not John Edwards. That was John Ritter sitting there. It looked like him.
BROWN: Well, we should all have the senator's problem of looking a little young.
QUINN: Unlike Dick Cheney, who, boy, he could have used a little more of that mortician makeup tonight.
BROWN: You thought he looked a little dour? QUINN: No, but look how -- he looked -- I don't know if he made it out of the studio. I shouldn't even say anything bad about him. But Edwards was, like, rosy-cheeked and Cheney was beyond the pale, as they say.
BROWN: Why do you think the -- you know, a lot's been written about your colleague over at Comedy Central, Mr. Stewart, and the influence he's had. And Leno and Letterman, I think. I don't know if influence is the right word, but they're out there, talking about this stuff.
QUINN: Right.
BROWN: You do, too. Why -- why do you think it is so? Why has comedy become -- it's always had a role in this, but more so?
QUINN: I don't know. I mean, just because, you know, people can't tolerate anything without a little bit of, you know, some entertainment. So they've either got to have sex or violence or comedy so people can sit and watch something for five minutes.
BROWN: Jon, who I love dearly, I always think he gets a little uncomfortable at the idea that people are going to him to find out what's really going on.
QUINN: Right. Well, he's going to have to be president some day so he better get used to it. Right? That's the next step? Comedians run for office?
BROWN: I think the next step -- Al Franken talked about running.
QUINN: That's right. He is running for senator. That is right.
BROWN: He says he's not sure.
You got one good zinger out there tonight?
QUINN: I've got a few good zingers. My favorite...
BROWN: We'll be the judge of that.
QUINN: All right. One of my favorites was when he -- you know, he nailed Cheney. He goes, you know, "Voted against Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Meals on Wheels, the death penalty for kittens." He just hit them, like seven, and then Cheney goes to the camera like this.
Like, "Yes, I did. What's next?"
That was funny (ph) on both their parts.
BROWN: Nice to meet you.
QUINN: Thanks.
BROWN: Thank you for coming in. QUINN: All right. Appreciate it.
BROWN: Good luck to you.
QUINN: All right.
BROWN: One quick note. It's kind of a tough turn, kind of a sad note, too. Rodney Dangerfield died today. Rodney Dangerfield was 82. He will be remembered as the master of self-deprecating one-liners, including his trademark line, "I don't get no respect."
That, of course, was the act. In truth, he got lots of respect, lots of acclaim and a good many fans who just left Las Vegas. He headlined shows there for more than 20 years in a tough town, was in dozens of movies, including, if you're a golfer, the all-time best golf movie, "Caddyshack."
Mr. Dangerfield suffered a stroke and other complications. He underwent heart surgery in August. He died today at 82.
QUINN: Can I just say, we named our...
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Okey-doke. Time to check "Morning Papers" around the country and around the world, the traditional variety. We have a lot. And I'm trying to do it quickly, but I always say that, and then I never do. And here I am doing it again.
What's wrong with me?
The "Pioneer Press." That's the newspaper in St. Paul/Minneapolis. I was in the Twin Cities today. Gave a speech there last night. People were so great. There is such truth to Minnesota nice.
Why did I lead with this? Because the Twins won. "Fielding Cheers" is the headline. The Twins beat the big, bad Yankees of New York, two to nothing. Pretty good ballgame it was.
"Cheney, Edwards Spar on Iraq." They get that other story there.
"The Washington Times" headline's "Little Civility at the Debate." That's a little stronger than I might say it, but it was a little testy there.
"San Antonio Express-News," "V.P. Hopefuls Talk Tough."
Where's the "Philadelphia Inquirer?" Here it is. "Class of Running Mates" is the lead. But the Bremer story, I'm telling you, is a big and important story: "Too Few Troops in Iraq." People are going to be talking about that, and that's going to end up in ads and that kind of stuff. And he's going to regret saying that, I have a feeling.
Where's the "Chicago Sun-Times?" People always ask me why we end with the weather in Chicago, and the answer is beats me, OK? But we are. "Satisfactual" is the weather word. Thank you for that.
"Flu Shot Problem Cuts U.S. Supply in Half." We'll talk more about that tomorrow, I suspect.
We'll wrap it up for tonight in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Good to have you with us tonight. We're back at our normal time, 10 Eastern, tomorrow, then another midnight program on Friday. I can't begin to tell you how good it is to be home after a week and a half on the road.
We'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us.
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Aired October 6, 2004 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, everyone. Well, we said a few days ago the debaters have debated, the spinners are spinning. Actually, it seems to us the spinners are working quite hard tonight. The debate had a bit more edge, to our ear, than the one last week. And if there was a knockout punch thrown or landed, we didn't hear it or see it. My guess -- lots of others will weigh in -- is that not a lot of minds changed tonight. And given how soon the two presidential candidates meet again, come Friday, the story itself has a short shelf life.
Right now, it's fresh as fresh baked bread, so to "The Whip" we go. First up, our senior White House correspondent, covering the president, John King. John, a headline from your side.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a bit of a spring in the Bush-Cheney campaign tonight. They think this debate went a lot better than the last one. The vice president's mission tonight was to make this election much more about leadership than just about Iraq, and the Bush-Cheney camp thinks, at least for this night, he succeeded -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thanks. Next to the Kerry camp, how they see things, Candy Crowley once again dealing with those guys and those women. Candy, a headline from you.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the bottom line from the Kerry campaign is that John Edwards did what he had to do. That may not sound like a great, ringing applause line, but it is good enough.
BROWN: Thank you. Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, with us. Jeff, a headline as you saw the debate.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Aaron, this was a debate in which both candidates had their moments. I think you are right in saying that this was not a debate that is going to radically alter the race, but when you come back to me, I will offer you one possible notion that may sound strange, that the Cheney strength may turn out to be something that the Bush campaign will not be entirely happy with -- Aaron.
BROWN: I love when you tease me that way, Jeff. Thank you. Finally, to the facts, and there were some tricky enough at any time of the night. CNN's Bill Schneider and staff working with him tonight, helping to separate truth from debating points. So Bill, a headline. WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Aaron, it's all about money. How much is the Iraq war costing? And who would bear the burden of tax hikes if Kerry gets elected? Those are some big factual disputes from this debate.
BROWN: We'll get to you, as well, Bill. All the rest, thank you. Also coming up on the program tonight, the man who ran Iraq after the war says the administration failed -- failed -- to put enough troops there. It was an explosive comment at a most important moment. Also, could a voter registration form mix-up put the Sunshine State -- or should it be the hurricane state -- in the spotlight again? And at the end of the hour, as with every hour -- hours -- morning papers.
All that in more in the hour ahead. We begin, of course, with the debate, a proxy battle, to be sure, for the top of the ticket, but also deeply in the moment and as powerful as two passionate and talented debaters can make it. Anybody who missed it missed something -- or at least, most of it. It may have slowed down a little towards the end. Several takes on the evening coming up in the hour ahead, but first a recap from CNN's Judy Woodruff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): No punches pulled around this debate table.
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: That was a complete distortion of my record. I know that's not going to come as a shock.
RICHARD CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Senator, frankly, you have a record in the Senate that's not very distinguished.
WOODRUFF: Dick Cheney and John Edwards trading stinging barbs throughout a 90-minute showdown, their only debate of the campaign, the vice president seeking to portray the North Carolina senator as inexperienced and ineffective...
CHENEY: Your home town newspaper has taken to calling you "Senator Gone." You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.
WOODRUFF: ... Edwards trying to paint Cheney as a servant of big business who lied to the American people about the war in Iraq.
EDWARDS: Now, I want the American people to hear this very clearly. Listen carefully to what the vice president is saying because there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11 -- period.
WOODRUFF: Iraq and the war on terror dominated the first half of the debate, with the candidates echoing charges leveled by their running mates. CHENEY: You're not credible on Iraq because of the enormous inconsistencies that John Kerry and you have cited time after time after time during the course of the campaign.
WOODRUFF: But other issues found their way into the discussion, like the Bush-backed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, something Cheney, who has a lesbian daughter, opposes.
EDWARDS: It's nothing but a political tool, and it's being used in an effort to divide this country.
WOODRUFF: The vice president was given an opportunity to respond to the comment. He declined. What Cheney did was fire back on another close-to-home matter, Halliburton.
EDWARDS: When the vice president was CEO of Halliburton, they took care of -- took advantage of every off-shore loophole available.
CHENEY: The reason they keep trying to attack Halliburton is because they want to obscure their own record.
WOODRUFF: And what of the reaction shots, those pesky cutaways that bedeviled the president in his first debate with John Kerry. Tonight, both men kept their faces straight and their noses in their notes.
Judy Woodruff, CNN, Cleveland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That was a quick take on how it went tonight, and now what's going on is the spinners are having at it, trying to lay out how they saw it. And the candidates are out at rallies and the like. Senator Kerry, who we presume watched the debate, is surprisingly -- not surprisingly -- proud of his running mate, calling him a short time ago from Colorado, where Senator Kerry is preparing for Friday's debate, called to say congratulations and let the cameras in to witness it.
Meantime, Senator Edwards went from the debate back to the stump, addressing a rally not far from Case Western University out in Cleveland, Ohio. The vice president went to a rally, too, speaking to Bush-Cheney supporters at an armory in Cleveland.
On now to the impressions of the night as seen by each side. John King with the Bush-Kerry -- rather, Bush-Cheney camp, and Candy Crowley with the Kerry-Edwards side. Good to see you all.
John, a question to start. It seemed to me one of the things the vice president was trying to do tonight was to say, in reaction to last week's debate, 90 minutes, 90 good minutes does not a record make, does not a policy make, does not a president make.
KING: Exactly right, Aaron, and some Republicans privately tonight saying something they probably dare not say in public, that they think the vice president did a better job tonight than the president himself did last week. We know the president was watching back at the White House residence. It's not rocket science, from the Bush campaign perspective. They think they win the election if the threshold question on November 2 is leadership in the war on terror. They think it's a much more dicey proposition if the threshold question is the war in Iraq and whether you think that's a good thing and what you think of the president's management of it.
So the vice president's challenge tonight was to defend and explain the war in Iraq, and he did so by saying that in the post-9/11 world, presented with intelligence suggesting Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that the president did the right thing and that the administration is adjusting to the circumstances on the ground now. Having made that explanation, he then immediately turned to question the credibility and the qualifications of the Democrats to be commander-in-chief.
In doing so, as we saw a bit of in Judy's piece, Vice President Cheney saying Senator Kerry has voted on the wrong side of national security throughout his career in the Senate, has had conflicting positions on the war in Iraq, the vice president saying that that switch on Iraq, in his view, was because of political pressure, and he laid out what he believed the consequences could and would be.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: We've seen a situation in which first they voted to commit the troops, send them to war, John Edwards and John Kerry. Then they came back and when the question was whether or not to provide them with the resources they needed -- body armor, spare parts, ammunition -- they voted against it. I couldn't figure out why that happened initially, and then I looked and figured out that what was happening was Howard Dean was making major progress in the Democratic primaries, running away with the primaries based on an anti-war record. So they, in effect, decided they would cast an anti- war vote, and they voted against the troops. Now, if they couldn't stand up under the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to al Qaeda?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now, both campaigns believe people vote for the person at the top of the ticket, so the vice president spending most of his time focusing on John Kerry, again saying his record in the Senate proves, in the vice president's view, that he was on the wrong side on national security, conflicting views on Iraq. But Aaron, the vice president also did talk about his own experience in public service and his own role in the administration in the hours and days after the 9/11 attacks and then turning to Senator Edwards at one point, saying that his record, in the vice president's view, was not very distinguished, the vice president clearly trying to convince the American people that the man who is vice president should matter more, at least a little more in this election, and that he has much more experience for the job -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thanks. Candy, the goal, I assume, for the -- for Senator Edwards, at least in part -- I mean, he has to do what all vice presidents have to do, which is defend his guy. But he also, because he is the least known, has to defend himself. Are they at least -- are they convinced privately that he held his own?
CROWLEY: They absolutely believe that he held his own. The -- John Edwards himself is described by aides as pumped up. You saw that very public display of affection from -- from the No. 1 on the ticket, calling John Edwards in front of the cameras, saying, You did a great job. They believe that going into this, John Edwards did have to answer this question. Is he experienced enough to be the man who is a heartbeat away from the presidency? They believe that not only did John Edwards answer that question yes, but he also brought into question just exactly what sort of experience George Bush and John -- and Dick Cheney bring to the ticket.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARDS: The vice president and president like to talk about their experience on the campaign trail. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Millions have fallen into poverty. Family incomes are down, while the cost of everything is going up. Medical costs up to the highest they've ever been over the last four years. We have this mess in Iraq. Mr. Vice President, I don't think the country can take four more years of this kind of experience.
(END VIDEO
CROWLEY: The Edwards people are also quite happy. They believe that, in fact, they scored a couple of hits just by bringing up the name Halliburton. A lot of focus groups have shown that just bringing up that name, even if people can't describe what went on with Halliburton, they know it's a bad thing. In the end, this debate was not unlike that doctors' motto, First do no harm. And as far as the Kerry campaign is concerned, John Edwards did no harm and did himself some good -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, if he did harm, it went -- honestly, it went past me. I didn't see it. Just compare your -- you were dealing with many of the same people a week ago, after the first presidential campaign -- I think I asked you on a 1-to-10 what the -- sort of how the mood was. How is the mood, by comparison, tonight? Are they less ebullient than they were a week ago?
CROWLEY: Yes. I mean, they're not un-ebullient? Is that -- is that a word there?
BROWN: Yes.
CROWLEY: They're not...
BROWN: Giddy.
CROWLEY: It's not the same. It's -- they're not giddy. They are definitely not giddy. They needed a solid performance. They think they got a solid performance, but they are certainly not as excited as they were. But there was more at stake in the last one, and they think they met -- more than met their expectations in the presidential debate. This one, the expectations were that, A, they knew he was a great debater because they knew that he was very good on the stump, very good as a trial lawyer. But you know, the fact is that they don't -- it's not something that they thought, This is make or break. And while they didn't think that on the first presidential debate, it was pretty close to it. So the adrenaline rush here afterwards is certainly not as high.
BROWN: Candy, thanks a lot. A long night for you. Candy Crowley, John King, who are covering the candidates. Jeff Greenfield takes a step back from all of this, tries to watch both sides, see how they manage the moment. And Jeff joins us now from Cleveland, as well. So Jeff, how did they manage the moment?
GREENFIELD: Well, I think both candidates were playing to their strength. That is, Dick Cheney, after a beginning that even his supporters thought was a little bit uncertain, zeroed right in on his target, and that is John Kerry. And it's the message Dick Cheney has been carrying all year long. It has been put in the bluntest way, Vote for John Kerry and die. But the more correct way to put it is, You cannot trust this critical war on terror to a president this inconsistent.
Here's an example of what Dick Cheney had to say tonight on that.
Well, I guess there isn't anything that I wanted to -- that we had. I thought we had pulled a tape. But it's reflected in what John King showed you, that basically, what Dick Cheney was arguing repeatedly was, This is an issue of credibility. You can't have a 90- minute debate to make up for a 20-year record, even went back to John Kerry's first congressional run back in 1972, when he talked about getting the United Nations as the guidepost for American intervention.
By contrast, Senator Edwards was much stronger, as you might expect, on the domestic side. And in this regard, Aaron, he was aided by the fact that Dick Cheney's focus, really ever since 9/11, has been the war on terror, the war in Iraq. When Dick -- when John Edwards indicted the Kerry -- I'm sorry -- the Bush administration for increased poverty, for the loss of jobs, the answers that Dick Cheney gave in this area were much more pro forma than his much more resolute attack on John Kerry's record. And so when John Edwards was talking about people sitting at the kitchen table, ordinary middle-class people, that, I think, is where Edwards gained the most.
One more point, Aaron, and I alluded to this in "The Whip." The fact that the Republicans are saying that Dick Cheney did better than the president raises an interesting possible problem. If people see George W. Bush as less imposing than Dick Cheney -- that is, if they see Dick Cheney as the man behind the curtain running things, and the Bush-Cheney campaign is saying Cheney did better than Bush, I'm wondering whether, to some extent, that reinforces that image that President Bush isn't the real leader of the Bush-Cheney administration, Aaron.
BROWN: A couple things quickly. Does it change in any way what we might expect come Friday?
GREENFIELD: I don't think so. I think it tees up Friday as a really big deal.
BROWN: And -- I'm sorry. And do you...
GREENFIELD: No, please.
BROWN: Would you expect it gives us an indication on the Bush side that the president will be a little bit edgier, a little bit more, or maybe a lot more aggressive in his attacks on Senator Kerry than he was the other night?
GREENFIELD: I don't think -- I don't think that's as easy in a town meeting debate as in a formal debate. In fact, what I think more likely is that you will see a president who does -- who's going to be very much on notice that he's not to look testy, tired, exasperated or disgusted. I'm sure they've made that point very clear to the president. And because there's an audience asking questions, and because you have to respond to those questions by at least appearing to respond to a regular citizen, it's much harder to be aggressive about your opponent when you're doing it -- channeling it by answering a question of a citizen. So I'm not sure I agree with that part, but I certainly think that the message that the president gets across is, I am the resolute leader that most of you thought I was a month ago, before you saw me in this debate, and I know how to protect this country. But I think there has to be a certain gentleness about it because he can't turn right to John Kerry and make that charge, Aaron.
BROWN: Jeff, thank...
GREENFIELD: Interesting format.
BROWN: Yes, it is. Jeff, thank you. This is a full week. The news cycle here on this story only lasts probably another day or so, and much of that will be consumed by trying to figure out what the facts were. Were there major misstatements of fact, as opposed to mild exaggerations, $188 billion versus $200 billion. I mean, you can argue about that sort of stuff, but were there major exaggerations of fact?
Bill Schneider and his team has been tasked, as they say, with figuring that all out. So Mr. Schneider, were there major errors of fact tonight?
SCHNEIDER: Well, there were some. Dick Cheney said Edwards was wrong when he claimed that 90 percent of the coalition casualties in Iraq have been Americans. Cheney said the correct figure is closer to 50 percent. But according to the Pentagon and the Central Command, 88.5 percent of the coalition military fatalities in Iraq since the war began have been Americans. Cheney was changing the base to include losses by Iraqi security forces. Edwards was referring to the coalition forces that invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein.
Another point. Edwards said the U.S. has spent $200 billion and counting on the Iraq war. The Office of Management and Budget says the cost through September 20, '04, has actually been $120 billion. The $200 billion figure includes money allocated for the coming fiscal year, some of which is actually earmarked for Afghanistan. So the claim that the United States is spending 90 percent of the cost in Iraq appears to have been a bit of an exaggeration by Mr. Edwards.
And finally, this. Dick Cheney said 900,000 small businesses that create new jobs will be hit by Kerry's tax increase. Listen to what the vice president said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: A great man of our small businesses pay taxes under the personal income taxes, rather than the corporate rate. And about 900,000 small businesses will be hit if you do, in fact, do what they want to do with the top bracket. That's not smart because 7 out of 10 new jobs in America are created by small businesses.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHNEIDER: Now, the Tax Policy Center tells us that only 471,000 small businesses would actually face a tax increase from the Kerry plan, and those that file tax returns as individuals include a lot of so-called sideline businesses, such as occasional rentals of yachts and condos. Most of those who pay higher taxes under Kerry's plan are individuals who are not primarily business owners, and a lot of them -- a huge number, they say -- have no employees at all.
BROWN: Oh, that's a good one to fight over. I want to go back to the casualties because, actually, the -- here's how I heard it, and tell me if I heard it right. Senator Edwards says 90 percent of the coalition casualties -- that's the universe he's talking about, the coalition casualties -- have been American. The vice president answers 54 percent of the total casualties -- not the coalition casualties, but the total number of people who died -- are actually American.
They are, as I heard it -- I mean, assuming that they're -- both numbers are correct, they both could be right. The vice president essentially responded to a different question.
SCHNEIDER: That's right. And he also specifically said that 90 percent figure is wrong. That 90 percent figure wasn't wrong. Cheney is simply -- the vice president is simply using a different figure because he's including Iraqi security forces, which were not part of the coalition. And it would be -- it's an odd usage to include the Iraqi losses alongside the losses of those who invaded Iraq.
BROWN: Well, it does -- it does help you reduce the number a little bit. There were a number of allegations having to do with Halliburton, that it had paid millions of dollars in fines, that it was under investigation, that in the current moment, while it's under investigation, it's still being paid the full weight of its contract. Have we had a chance to check all those out?
SCHNEIDER: Well, we have looked into it. We don't have a definitive answer yet. We're going to report on that tomorrow. But the vice president specifically said he knows that that's a smokescreen, those charges are false. From everything we've seen, those charges are true, and some of them have been -- were under investigation during Cheney's watch. But we are looking much more closely into that. We're not entirely sure what the vice president meant when he said he knows those charges are false.
BROWN: Well, I think I know what he meant when he said, I know the charges are false. I think he meant, I know the charges are false. That's my take.
SCHNEIDER: Well, he said he knows...
BROWN: Oh, OK.
SCHNEIDER: ... Edwards knows the charges are false.
BROWN: Oh, what's -- well, we'll work on the facts on that. Bill, thank you very much.
SCHNEIDER: Sure.
BROWN: These things, at some point, ought to be about facts, and it's -- you have to check them, and it's hard to do it in 20 minutes or a half hour or an hour, so we're working on it. We'll have more on this tomorrow, I guarantee it.
Ahead on the program tonight, what would have been, I think, the lead story on any other day around here, the former U.S. administrator in Iraq puts the White House, the Pentagon and lots of others on the defense today. And a voter registration mix-up in the state of Florida has some voters in the Sunshine State outraged again.
We are pleased to once again say, From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, all of those, aren't they, they're a reminder that Iraq is more than a collection of debating points, something we lose sight of on days like today. There were several developments in Iraq today. American and Iraqi forces launched an operation in Babil province, in the central part of the country. So far, they've taken control of a bridge over the Euphrates River used by the insurgents moving in and out of Fallujah. About 3,000 Marines, soldiers and Iraqi national guardsmen, some combination, reported taking part in that.
Meanwhile, insurgents took aim at the U.S. convoy in Ramadi, one soldier, seven Iraqi civilians wounded when a roadside bomb went off. A lot worse in Mosul today, where a car bomb went off at a crowded traffic circle. Three civilians died, four U.S. soldiers wounded, this on a day when 10 police officers were gunned down farther south in the country.
And with that all as a backdrop, Iraq's interim prime minister spoke to the country's National Council, a much darker message than he delivered to Congress when he was in Washington a short time ago. The terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the man the Bush administration has long portrayed as al Qaeda's link to Iraq, is now the focus of a new CIA report that surfaced today. The Bush administration has maintained that Iraq provided a safe haven for Mr. Zarqawi before the U.S. invasion. The CIA now says the evidence of that is inconclusive on whether Saddam knowingly harbored Zarqawi. This assessment surfacing as the former civil administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, handed the Kerry campaign a major gift. Here's CNN Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer now admits what critics have been saying for a year-and-a-half: The U.S. did not send enough troops to Iraq to keep the peace. Bremer is quoted in a press release as saying, "We never had enough troops on the ground," that from an insurance group Bremer addressed Monday. And in remarks at DePauw University last month that drew little attention at the time, Bremer went even further, telling a student forum, "The one thing that would have improved the situation would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout."
Bremer's second-guessing is political dynamite and was seized on by John Kerry to buttress his argument the war plan was flawed.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Now Paul Bremer is saying what a terrible mistake it was. The president needs to take accountability for his own judgments.
MCINTYRE: In a clarifying statement, Bremer says there are now enough troops in Iraq, and insists his comments refer to his belief when he arrived in May of 2003 that more U.S. or Iraqi forces were needed to contain looting in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. At the time Defense Secretary Rumsfeld dismissed the looting, saying, "War is imperfect and stuff happens."
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's untidy. And freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things!
MCINTYRE: Bremer says the U.S. paid a big price for not stopping the looting because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness. It's not clear whether he argued for more troops either with military commanders or with Rumsfeld. But he said, "Although I raised this issue a number of times with our government, I should have been even more insistent."
Rumsfeld issued his own clarifying statement after this exchange Monday at a New York speech.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Secretary, what exactly was the connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda?
RUMSFELD: I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.
MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld now says he was misunderstood and that he's acknowledged links between Iraq and al Qaeda since September of 2002.
(on camera): The Bush campaign acknowledged that Ambassador Bremer differed with commanders in the field and said that's his right. The White House refused to say if Bremer ever asked President Bush directly for more troops, insisting the president relied on the Pentagon and military commanders to determine troop requirements.
Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: All right, some of the news background of the day. "Time" magazine's Joe Klein is in Cleveland. He's been in the thick of the debate tonight and the spin of the debate tonight. It's always good to see Joe. The vice president, to me, successfully dodged both those questions tonight. He really didn't address much the Rumsfeld statement, and he didn't much address the Bremer statement, both of which are potentially, I would argue, quite damaging to the president, if they are not dealt with in some way.
JOE KLEIN, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, I don't know whether he successfully dodged them. He did dodge them, though, and these are major issues. You know, it's -- it goes to the heart of why this situation in Iraq is a tremendous mess right now. But there is danger here for John Kerry and John Edwards because if they are saying that we never had enough troops there, and the next question is, Do we have enough troops there now, they are on the brink of saying maybe we should have some more troops there. Or at least, that's a logical question to ask them.
Seems to me, in talking to military people and intelligence people, that neither campaign is telling the truth about this crucial issue, which is that if we're going to salvage the situation there or have any hope of salvaging it, we're going to need more American troops.
BROWN: My goodness. I hate to be the one to say it again, but it sounds, for those of us of a certain age, an awful lot like the way politicians talked before elections during Vietnam. Be that as it may...
KLEIN: That's exactly right. With one difference. There were no greater strategic consequences to Vietnam. When we lost Vietnam, it -- nothing terrible happened to the United States. If we lose in Iraq, if we have to withdraw, we are leaving, A, chaos, B, a possible al Qaeda state, and C, a possible civil war. The stakes here, in terms of geostrategic issues, could not be higher. This is a huge, huge issue.
BROWN: Couldn't agree more. Quickly, a couple points on the debate. In 10 seconds, were you surprised by anything?
KLEIN: Well, I thought Edwards did better than I expected. I thought Cheney defended himself very well. But in some -- you know, to some extent, no one really figured that Edwards could go toe-to-toe with Cheney on this stuff, and I think he did.
Cheney made a really important point, though, when he criticized Kerry and Edwards for essentially dissing the Iraqis, who are fighting for their own freedom, which they've done a couple of times in the last few weeks. That's very sloppy on Kerry and Edwards' part, and it was a really strong point by Vice President Cheney.
BROWN: It struck me that, in some ways, there were two debates going on and that the vice president probably won on points on the foreign policy/Iraq side. And that Edwards won on points, perhaps a little bit more, on the domestic side of the debate.
KLEIN: Well, I think that there were -- there were weaknesses on both sides. I really don't think that the vice president won on the foreign policy side because of the Bremer question and because of the reality here.
The reality is that Iraq is a mess, and the Bush administration hasn't come up with -- hasn't even begun to acknowledge it. So that puts them in a difficult position.
He was certainly much stronger than the president was, and he certainly made a strong case about Kerry's record over the last 20, 25 years. But still, the Bush administration has to answer the situation on the ground, and they haven't come up with a good answer for it.
BROWN: Joe, good to see you. As you'll be traveling on...
KLEIN: Great to see you, Aaron.
BROWN: ... traveling on to St. Louis, and hopefully we'll talk on Friday. Thanks a lot.
Coming up on the program, more on the debate. "The Brown Table" joins us. And later, "Tough Crowd's" Colin Quinn on the debate, as well. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Our "Brown Table" buddies are scattered across the map tonight. Terry Neal, WashingtonPost.com, is in West Palm Beach. Nina Easton of "The Boston Globe" at home in Washington. Well, she's not literally at home, I don't think. And "Wall Street Journal's" John Harwood in Cleveland for all -- that's to see all.
Terry, pretty much the consensus is it was a draw. Was it an interesting draw? Did it capture people, do you think?
TERRY NEAL, WASHINGTONPOST.COM: It was a very interesting draw. I thought it was much more interesting debate than last week. I thought these guys were much -- much better debaters.
I would actually say that, if you were to judge this based on who had the most memorable lines and that sort of thing, I would give a slight edge to Dick Cheney.
But I would say in terms of expectations, the fact that a lot of people didn't think that John Edwards would be able to stand toe to toe with him, I think that John Edwards did a good job. He more than held his own, especially on Iraq.
I thought that, you know, people were expecting him to just dominate on the domestic policy portion. But I thought he did a pretty good job holding -- holding the vice president's feet to the fire on that -- on that critical issue of Iraq.
BROWN: Nina, I think we can all talk about this tomorrow, because that's what we do and that's what you guys write about. And then by the next day, we'll be writing about preparations for Friday anyway. So it's pretty much a one-day story. Does it matter?
NINA EASTON, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Yes, it matters to some extent. I mean, certainly, President Bush was kind of the outliner. He brought -- he brought outlines to the table and, I think, got criticized for it.
Cheney showed himself as a real policy guy. It's interesting. You know, of course, conventional wisdom -- yes, John Edwards held his own. He overcame that image that he had of sort of a game show host, lightweight. So he held his own, and he did quite well.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to meet Vice President Dick Cheney in a dark alley. Boy, some of those punches, you saw them coming, when he said that -- that Edwards -- you know, if you can't stand up to pressure from Howard Dean, how do you stand up to pressure from al Qaeda? I saw that one coming.
But then there were ones you didn't see coming, like, well, I don't have to talk about my story as, you know, modest beginnings. And of course, a criticism of John Edwards always going on in the campaign trail...
BROWN: Yes.
EASTON: ... as the son of a mill worker. So I thought in terms of, you know, counterpunching, Dick Cheney, oh, boy. He was tough.
BROWN: Yes. I think he wields a stiletto about as well...
EASTON: He does.
BROWN: ... as anyone out there. You're not really aware it's coming, and then the next thing you know, it's buried in your ribs.
John, if you were writing the lead, and in fact, you may be writing the lead for tomorrow -- I'm not sure -- in the "Journal," what would it say?
JOHN HARWOOD, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": I think you had, Aaron, a real battle of experience versus empathy. And it played out both in the words and in the body language. You know, the body language was the most interesting thing in last night's -- last week's debate.
Tonight, it was quite interesting as well, but it was sort of positive for both men -- Dick Cheney, very sober, cerebral, matter of fact. They made that case in the closing where he said, you know, "I've served many presidents." And this is a unique point in our history. This is a threat like we've never seen. If you're an undecided voter out there, especially women, that might be a reassuring quality to him, to see this older guy right here talked to that way.
John Edwards, on the other hand, was somebody who was connecting on a guy level, tell kids at the table stories about families. And he made powerful arguments about fresh start on both the economy and on health care, and on Iraq as well.
So what -- which qualities those voters are going to settle on, it's going to be one of the fascinating things that will play out over the next...
EASTON: And it's interesting...
BROWN: Go ahead.
EASTON: I was going to say, Dick Cheney, when he goes out on the campaign trail, he brings his family with him. So you've got Lynne Cheney; you've got his daughter and you've got his granddaughters, these darling little girls who come out on stage.
And then -- so that humanizes him. But it also enables him to talk about protecting the next generation against -- in the war on terrorism. So he's able to connect both of those on the campaign trail.
BROWN: Terry, last word. Did John Edwards, if it matters. I think it probably does somewhat. Did John Edwards convince people, do you think that me -- well, I don't want to put it that way. Should it -- should it be necessary that he should be president?
NEAL: Well, you know, I think he did. I mean, I think that he -- like I said, I think he stood toe-to-toe. He was able to -- he had a -- he had a clear, concise message. He had a good grasp of the facts. And he made it clear that, you know, you don't have to have a 30-year-old, 31-year long resume in politics to be -- to be a good leader.
I thought he did what he needed to do. I thought we could have done better in some points.
But what -- I think that he certainly held his own with a guy who's got to be the toughest debater that the Republican Party has. So in that respect, I think he did -- he did seem a bit less nervous to me than he did in his acceptance speech.
BROWN: All of you will see Friday night, I hope, from St. Louis or wherever you happen to be. We're going to make you work late on Friday. Thank you all.
NEAL: No problem.
HARWOOD: Thanks. You bet.
BROWN: Still to come on the program, Robert George of the "New York Post" joins us to give us his take on the event in Cleveland tonight. We'll take a break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Robert George is with up tonight. He's a conservative voice at a red meat paper. I think that's fair to -- he's a conservative voice at a red meat paper. I think that's fair -- fair way to describe the "New York Post." Also a lot of fun to read.
He calls them as he sees them, there and here.
It's nice to see you, not -- I actually -- it was quite tense there for awhile. It was a pretty edgy moment. Someone, I don't remember who it was -- I was coming up. I was reading. Said, it's as close to the civil war or a street fight as you can come sitting down and on cable.
I mean, there was a tension there.
ROBERT GEORGE, NEW YORK POST: Yes. Absolutely. And I think -- I mean, I think, you know, Cheney, you know, came -- wanting to come on as -- as the uber adult. You know, he want to be -- he wanted A, he wanted to set any perceptions -- right, any perceptions that had developed after the president's less than stellar performance last week.
And at the same time, I think he also wanted to show the distance, in terms of his experience, between him and John Edwards.
BROWN: Did -- Jeff -- Jeff made a point earlier. He said there's a -- perhaps a danger in that if -- it's an interesting trap. If Dick Cheney does too well, he kind of proves a point of the critics, which is that he really is the hand that runs the puppet.
GEORGE: There is some of that, but I think -- I think Cheney was -- I think Cheney struck the right balance tonight.
If you noticed, most of -- most of his attack lines, if you will, went specifically to Kerry. Occasionally, he would refer to Kerry -- Kerry and -- Kerry and Edwards.
BROWN: At one point, he said about Edwards, "Frankly, Senator, your record is not very distinguished." That was pretty direct.
GEORGE: That's true. Well, that's true. And he also -- he also did -- one of the other good lines was this is -- "This is the first time I've met John Edwards."
BROWN: Which in fact was not true.
GEORGE: It was not -- is that true? Is that true?
BROWN: Yes. I think we -- I think we're about five minutes away from actually showing the picture, but I think I can say to you that was not true. But it was a heck of a good line. GEORGE: A heck of a good line. And as was the Howard -- as was the Howard Dean line.
BROWN: Yes.
GEORGE: I mean, I think the point is if -- if success for the vice presidential debate is elevating -- elevating the No. 1 person on the ticket and taking down the No. 1 on the other guy, on the other side, I think -- I think Cheney ended up being more successful at that than Edwards was on the other side.
BROWN: You and I have had a number of conversations off the air about Iraq and how much problem do you think that -- do you think Mr. Bremer gave the president in his remarks in West Virginia and Secretary Rumsfeld gave the president in his remarks on al Qaeda?
GEORGE: I think -- I think they -- I think they gave him some serious troubles. Now, whether those -- whether those comments are going to get lost in between the debate tonight, the president's extensive address tomorrow, we don't know.
But I mean, I think -- I think one of the problems that this administration has to keep an eye out for is -- is not -- not just the fact that Bremer is saying something that contradicts what had been said before or give some kind of strength to what Kerry is saying.
It's sometimes a problem that this administration is increasingly not speaking with one voice. As if -- discipline had been the watchword of this administration for all the last three years.
And you saw it -- you saw it about a week or so ago when -- when Armitage, Powell and Rumsfeld all had different views on -- on how elections would run. And that shows -- that's problematic for one -- for an administration that wants reelection.
BROWN: Good to see you again.
GEORGE: Thank you.
BROWN: See you again soon. Robert George of the "New York Post" and others.
Ahead tonight, "Tough Crowd's" Colin Quinn joins us on the debate. "Morning Papers" still coming up, a quick look at those. And much more. Well, not much more, but some more. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When you're batting cleanup, as we are tonight, you have the luxury of being first at bat in the next game up, which is this news cycle and most others. Late night comedy gets a fair take on these. And no doubt, the debate will be part of that.
Colin Quinn is the host of Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd," while it lasts. He's with us tonight. COLIN QUINN, HOST, "TOUGH CROWD": That's correct.
BROWN: Nice to see you, sir.
QUINN: Thank you, Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you.
A lot of yucks in the thing tonight?
QUINN: Well, it was kind of, you know. I mean, it wasn't the funniest thing. I mean, it was a little scary at times.
I mean, what scared me the most was when he goes, "You know, Kerry voted 600 times for this." We have a system where these guys are voting 600 times for things and we don't think there's something -- maybe something's being wasted, time wise?
It's psychotic. And they kept accusing -- just the fact that they were both right, and said, "Well, you voted for that."
"You voted for it, too."
"No, you did."
And they've all voted for, like, the most horrible things, you know?
BROWN: So at one point in the debate, this is funny how small things in American politics become big deals. At one point in the debate -- just roll this tape -- the vice president says he had never met until that night the senator.
QUINN: Right.
BROWN: In fact, there's John Kerry (sic) looking a bit like the fifth Beatle, I think, in that picture. And this was in Cleveland. This was a prayer breakfast. Is that what it was? And how long ago was it? It was 2001.
So, A, in fact, he had met him and was sitting reasonably close to him. And tomorrow, though, there'll be a fair amount of talk about the fact that, while it was a very good zinger, it wasn't true.
Not exactly the biggest issue in American politics.
QUINN: That was not John Edwards. That was John Ritter sitting there. It looked like him.
BROWN: Well, we should all have the senator's problem of looking a little young.
QUINN: Unlike Dick Cheney, who, boy, he could have used a little more of that mortician makeup tonight.
BROWN: You thought he looked a little dour? QUINN: No, but look how -- he looked -- I don't know if he made it out of the studio. I shouldn't even say anything bad about him. But Edwards was, like, rosy-cheeked and Cheney was beyond the pale, as they say.
BROWN: Why do you think the -- you know, a lot's been written about your colleague over at Comedy Central, Mr. Stewart, and the influence he's had. And Leno and Letterman, I think. I don't know if influence is the right word, but they're out there, talking about this stuff.
QUINN: Right.
BROWN: You do, too. Why -- why do you think it is so? Why has comedy become -- it's always had a role in this, but more so?
QUINN: I don't know. I mean, just because, you know, people can't tolerate anything without a little bit of, you know, some entertainment. So they've either got to have sex or violence or comedy so people can sit and watch something for five minutes.
BROWN: Jon, who I love dearly, I always think he gets a little uncomfortable at the idea that people are going to him to find out what's really going on.
QUINN: Right. Well, he's going to have to be president some day so he better get used to it. Right? That's the next step? Comedians run for office?
BROWN: I think the next step -- Al Franken talked about running.
QUINN: That's right. He is running for senator. That is right.
BROWN: He says he's not sure.
You got one good zinger out there tonight?
QUINN: I've got a few good zingers. My favorite...
BROWN: We'll be the judge of that.
QUINN: All right. One of my favorites was when he -- you know, he nailed Cheney. He goes, you know, "Voted against Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Meals on Wheels, the death penalty for kittens." He just hit them, like seven, and then Cheney goes to the camera like this.
Like, "Yes, I did. What's next?"
That was funny (ph) on both their parts.
BROWN: Nice to meet you.
QUINN: Thanks.
BROWN: Thank you for coming in. QUINN: All right. Appreciate it.
BROWN: Good luck to you.
QUINN: All right.
BROWN: One quick note. It's kind of a tough turn, kind of a sad note, too. Rodney Dangerfield died today. Rodney Dangerfield was 82. He will be remembered as the master of self-deprecating one-liners, including his trademark line, "I don't get no respect."
That, of course, was the act. In truth, he got lots of respect, lots of acclaim and a good many fans who just left Las Vegas. He headlined shows there for more than 20 years in a tough town, was in dozens of movies, including, if you're a golfer, the all-time best golf movie, "Caddyshack."
Mr. Dangerfield suffered a stroke and other complications. He underwent heart surgery in August. He died today at 82.
QUINN: Can I just say, we named our...
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Okey-doke. Time to check "Morning Papers" around the country and around the world, the traditional variety. We have a lot. And I'm trying to do it quickly, but I always say that, and then I never do. And here I am doing it again.
What's wrong with me?
The "Pioneer Press." That's the newspaper in St. Paul/Minneapolis. I was in the Twin Cities today. Gave a speech there last night. People were so great. There is such truth to Minnesota nice.
Why did I lead with this? Because the Twins won. "Fielding Cheers" is the headline. The Twins beat the big, bad Yankees of New York, two to nothing. Pretty good ballgame it was.
"Cheney, Edwards Spar on Iraq." They get that other story there.
"The Washington Times" headline's "Little Civility at the Debate." That's a little stronger than I might say it, but it was a little testy there.
"San Antonio Express-News," "V.P. Hopefuls Talk Tough."
Where's the "Philadelphia Inquirer?" Here it is. "Class of Running Mates" is the lead. But the Bremer story, I'm telling you, is a big and important story: "Too Few Troops in Iraq." People are going to be talking about that, and that's going to end up in ads and that kind of stuff. And he's going to regret saying that, I have a feeling.
Where's the "Chicago Sun-Times?" People always ask me why we end with the weather in Chicago, and the answer is beats me, OK? But we are. "Satisfactual" is the weather word. Thank you for that.
"Flu Shot Problem Cuts U.S. Supply in Half." We'll talk more about that tomorrow, I suspect.
We'll wrap it up for tonight in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Good to have you with us tonight. We're back at our normal time, 10 Eastern, tomorrow, then another midnight program on Friday. I can't begin to tell you how good it is to be home after a week and a half on the road.
We'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us.
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