Well, Edwards did become flustered at times (as when he broke the rules in talking about why he is qualified to be Veep -- that was hard to watch), and Cheney did back his arguments up with specifics (Which strengthens my impression that Cheney is the main author of many policies of the Bush Administration).

But Edwards is more inexperienced, simply because he's younger. And he's a better, more fluent speaker when he's able to stand, and especially pace (that's why Cheney insisted on a sit-down debate). About half my professors in college and grad school were like that -- they had to have their "runway" clear before they could lead a class. It's certainly not a trait that indicates a lack of judgement or intelligence.

What angered me most was this rebuttal from Cheney over Halliburton's role in Iraq, and his role in Halliburton (copied from a transcript on The Washington Post's website):

CHENEY: Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they're trying to throw up a smokescreen. They know the charges are false.

They know that if you go, for example, to factcheck.com [sic], an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton.

It's an effort that they've made repeatedly to try to confuse the voters and to raise questions, but there's no substance to the charges.

As I see it, the issue of Halliburton, whether or not Cheney was once its C.E.O., is central to the question of whether the Bush Administration is competent in conducting the war and rebuilding the peace. And isn't it the American people's right and duty to raise questions of their leaders and demand answers?

By the way: Before completing this post, I followed Cheney's advice, and put "factcheck.com" into Google. I was given a link that connected me to this site, instead. Oops. I don't think Cheney meant to do that, do you?

Still looking for the fact checking site .....