THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE TUESDAY OCTOBER 5.

My reaction during and immediately after the debate was that it was pretty much a draw. That was pretty much my reaction to both their presentation styles. And tempered somewhat, I admit, by the fact that Edwards is a lawyer and my view of lawyers in general tends to be on the negative side.

However, after seeing what the fact checkers have come up with about the debate, I've come to the conclusion that Edwards was really the winner of the debate. That's because of Cheney's many misstatements, misquotes and wrong facts. Not that Edwards was always correct, but his "truthful score" in the debate is much better than Cheney's.

Cheney comes across as a very likeable, stable individual. However, it is very unsettling that the current Vice President deals with such erroneous information. I seriously wonder if he's really the right person for the job of VP.

Edwards comes across (to me) as a slick slime-ball lawyer. But he's got his facts mostly right and his priorities are also right on. He was continually talking about Kerry, while Cheney only mentioned Bush 2 or 3 times. Cheney's failure here can be attributed to either he's under the misconception that the Vice Presidential debate is about the Vice President or that subconsiously he himself doesn't really buy into the Bush presidency. Hmmm!

For the facts, one place I went was the site where Cheney meant to send people to check about Halliburton: factcheck.org. Click here for their take on the VP debate facts. FYI, where Cheney actually sent people was factcheck.com, which is an eye-opener itself. Try the link.

For more debate facts, check out the Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball column in Newsweek.