Both Cheney and Lieberman talked in steady, dignified tones, with the debate's sit-down format reducing the formality of the event.
Steady, dignified tones that reflected the brazen certitude of a pair of charlatans.
One of the most unfortunate aspects of our media today and their so-called objectivity is that no matter how ridiculous a statement someone makes, if it is spoken in a way that sounds civil and authoritative, it is considered a reasonable position. Few people in politics have demonstrated this better than Dick Cheney (who continued to get a hearing and respect for his statements about WMDs in Iraq long after any rational person could have gotten away with such nonsense) and Joe Lieberman (who continues to hold a reputation in the media as a "moderate" despite his radical, far-right positions on the wars and other matters). There must be an entire wing at most of the media giants where they store their huge acquisitions of snake oil.
This attitude has made people like Bill Kristol fixtures in our mainstream media, despite the fact that they are almost universally wrong - and demonstrably so.
John "Straight Talk" McCain has learned this lesson well. So now at least our media, if not the voters, have become convinced of the reasonableness of John McCain's assertions that he has been right all along on the surge, or that drilling for oil off of the coast of Florida is a thoughtful position (even asserting that Florida voters seem to support this position, which is completely absurd -- Charlie Crist does not speak for his constituents on this matter at all), or that there should be a gas tax "holiday".
At what point do we focus on the underlying truth behind assertions, rather than being bogged down in tone and artificial collegiality?
