It's Miller Time!

New York

WIN OR LOSE, one thing is certain about the election: When they debate, Dick Cheney is going to beat the holy heck out of John Edwards.

Even factoring in the high expectations for Cheney, the vice presidential debate will be a blowout. Edwards is a smart, slick lawyer who occasionally fumbles important policy details (such as when he forgot what DOMA was during a New Hampshire debate). Cheney is the most competent vice president in recent memory, a tranquil and immovable presence, and a detail machine. Their tilt should make Quayle-Bentsen look like a squeaker.

Not that the vice presidential debate will have much impact on the general election--it'll probably have close to none. But it will be one of the few moments over the course of the 2004 campaign that Republicans will want to savor for years to come.

Tonight is a preview.

In Boston, the Democrats campaigned on domestic issues and made extended detours into national security. The entire Republican convention is oriented around the war on terrorism, and Vice President Cheney's speech is no exception. He has passages, here and there, about subjects such as education ("America's schools are now on an upward path to excellence") and the economy ("businesses are creating jobs"). But these moments are pro forma.

Cheney posits that this election is important because it will set the course of American policy in the war on terror for the medium term. He likens it to the years immediately following the end of World War II, when containment and deterrence became the U.S. policy. "Those policies containing Communism, deterring attack by the Soviet Union, and promoting the rise of democracy, were carried out by Democratic and Republican presidents alike," he says.

From there, the vice president launches a civil, but fairly damning critique of John Kerry's Senate record. "Senator Kerry opposed Ronald Reagan's major defense initiatives . . . voted against Operation Desert Storm . . . talks about leading a 'more sensitive war on terror . . . He declared at the Democratic convention that he will forcefully defend America after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked . . ."

His final flourish is the most withering assessment of Kerry which has been made to date: "In his years in Washington, John Kerry has been one of a hundred votes in the United States Senate and very fortunately on matters of national security, his views rarely prevailed. . . . A senator can be wrong for 20 years, without consequence to the nation. But a president, a president always casts the deciding vote." It is stern stuff, delivered without histrionics.

He never gets credit for it, but Dick Cheney is a fine, fine speaker. He doesn't wave his hands or bite his lip or smirk or punch the air with his fist. His voice does not rise and fall or sing-song to the crowd. He is calm, deliberate, grounded, and as a result, quite a powerful presence. It is one thing to be lambasted by a hysterical screamer, like Howard Dean. It is quite another to be taken to the woodshed by an adult. John Kerry found that out tonight. John Edwards will have the same opportunity in a few short weeks.

ZELL MILLER, of course, passed "stern" exactly eight sentences into his speech, when he declared, "my family is more important than my party." From there, Katie bar the door.

The first thought that crosses one's mind while listening to Miller's speech is that someone ought to fetch the fine people at the New York Times some smelling salts. Perhaps a bucketful. All through Miller's remarks, I could--literally--hear liberal reporters seated around me tsk-tsking and exclaiming, under their breath, "That's not fair!"

(As an aside: Can you guess the words which will be used to describe Miller's speech this morning? "Harsh," "diatribe," "smear," "strident," "partisan," "attack," "personal," "negative," "severe," "abrasive"? Anything else? "Rough," maybe. Oh, and I'll see you an "angry" and raise you an "ugly.")

Miller thunders that "nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators." "It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag." The ovation he receives for these sentiments is rapturous.