Hmmm…

I stated in the update to my livebloggin’ post that I may have judged Edwards too harshly. Josh Marshall certainly was impressed by Edwards:

I hesitate to say this. But my basic impression was that Edwards didn’t strike a false note for the entire 90 minutes. And I say this having been critical of him in the past.

… I thought Cheney started very weak and that Edwards started just as strong. Cheney recovered after not too long; but Edwards remained clean and on-message.

… Despite what we saw last week, and the lesson the debate prep folks must have taken from it, I thought that about a third of the way through the debate Edwards started to get under Cheney’s skin. The VP seemed mad. And not in a flattering way.

The basic reason, I think, was the same as in President Bush’s case. He didn’t like hearing the fusillade of criticism about Iraq and the war on terror.

Read the whole thing, particularly if you’re looking to feel good about tonight’s debate.

AB

UPDATE. Here’s Andrew Sullivan (who had “a feeling Cheney will crush Edwards tonight”):

If last Thursday night’s debate was an assisted suicide for president Bush, this debate – just concluded – was a car wreck. And Cheney was road-kill. There were times when it was so overwhelming a debate victory for Edwards that I had to look away. I have to do C-SPAN now, but stay tuned for more post-debate blogging in a little while.