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Here's my take. Now keep in mind that I had to listen in over the radio. But it seemed to me that the big moment was when Cheney went after Edwards for his absences from the Senate, noting that the debate was the first time the two had ever met. That one was a real stinger.

Compare tonight's big one-liner with the defining moments of the VP debate from 2000: The little back-and-forth joke about Lieberman going into the private sector and how Cheney should help him do so. During the whole debate four years ago you got a sense that Cheney and Lieberman were gentlemen who respected each other and were there to articulate their differing positions and opinions. The one time it got really negative was when Cheney went after Lieberman's becoming a yes-man for Al Gore, and yet during this "attack" he also expressed that he felt bad having to take up this line, that he really respected Joe and was genuinely concerned over what seemed to be his abandonment of principle.

Compare all that to tonight's debate. There was no congenial, gentlemanly sense of respectful disagreement. You got a sense from Cheney that he outright feared an Edwards vice-presidency; the contrast of his respect for Lieberman with his blatant, unapologetic unfamiliarity with Edwards could not be more striking.

Edwards won't carry the South for Kerry, not even North Carolina, and tonight he forfeited his other supposed "advantage," his "pretty-boy" charm. Johnny boy may not have been a buffoon, but he was generic at best, and when you're up against Dick Cheney that's not going to do.

Yes, I think it was very evident that stature-wise, Cheney was several notches above Edwards, who is no Joe Lieberman. I thought Cheney scored repeatedly on foreign policy. He clobbered Edwards on the Iraqis, and the Kerry position of saying he'll bring in more allies, all the while he's slandering the ones we do have.

I think Cheney was not going to attack Edwards' Senate record, as he really isn't the issue, Kerry is. But after the Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton stuff, he let it fly and it was beautiful. A debate version of "Go F*** Yourself!!!"