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Dick Cheney rides to the rescue of his commander-in-chief

Once again, US Vice President Dick Cheney sought on Tuesday night to come to the rescue of a member of a political family that he has served so loyally for nearly a generation.

For most of the 90-minute encounter with his rival, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Cheney attempted to reassure Republicans who had been unsettled by US President Bush's debate performance against Senator John Kerry last week, while hammering home the case against Kerry that polls now suggest Bush failed to make.

But if Cheney's task was big Tuesday night, his path was not as easy as it was in 2000, when he faced a genial and unchallenging opponent, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, rather than the combative trial lawyer who sat at his left elbow on Tuesday. Again and again, Edwards -- politely and deferentially, referring to his opponent as "Mr. Vice President" -- challenged Cheney's attempt to discredit Kerry's views and record, poking away at Cheney and Bush.

As the challenger going up against a seasoned vice president, Edwards needed to demonstrate a sense of authority, his aides said, and to convince the nation that he could step into the presidency at a moment's notice. He appeared to pass that test with a confident, calm performance.

Edwards frequently drew the vice president's ire -- and also drew Cheney's attention away from Kerry, his intended target.

"Senator, you have a record in the Senate that is not very distinguished," Cheney said at one point, looking sternly at Edwards as he proceeded to scold him for missing votes in the Senate. It took 11 minutes before Cheney first attacked Kerry.

Indeed, if Cheney came into the debate Tuesday seeking to reverse the slippage the Republicans have witnessed since Bush's answers and demeanor Thursday night distressed many supporters, Edwards succeeded at blocking him for much of the night. Instead, viewers watched two stylistically different but clearly accomplished politicians in an intense and often grim debate, and loyalists of both parties can be forgiven for thinking that the No. 2 candidates were more effective debaters than Kerry and Bush.

Cheney startled Edwards when he suggested that both Edwards and Kerry had tailored their positions on the war in Iraq -- in particular, by voting against an US$87 billion appropriation that included funding for US troops in Iraq -- in response to the initial power of the candidacy of Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont.

"Now, if they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to al-Qaeda?" Cheney asked

But Edwards was on the attack from the moment the moderator, Gwen Ifill, turned to him, defending Kerry even as he attacked Bush and Cheney. Most of all, he underscored what has been the central challenge Democrats have offered to Bush's Iraq war: That it had been a distraction from the war against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

"Mr. Vice President, there is no connection between the attacks of Sept. 11th and Saddam Hussein," Edwards said. "And you've gone around the country suggesting that there is some connection."

"We need to be straight with the American people," he said

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