Cheney Had Wonkiness Nailed

The set this time suggested a Sunday morning news show. A table, a moderator, two politicians from either side of the aisle, sitting there trading accusations on policy failures and broken promises.

For all but the wonkiest and the media elite, this hardly makes for electrifying TV. But Tuesday night it became clear this was a context in which Vice President Dick Cheney, so untelegenic that his image has been lampooned as cartoonishly evil, can actually do well. He spent the 90 minutes looking hunkered down, the right look if you’re on “Meet the Press” or “Face the Nation.”

The set neutralized Cheney’s evident disadvantage going in, trying to compete with Sen. John Edwards’ more obvious wattage in front of the camera.

Like the law professor immortalized by John Houseman in “The Paper Chase,” Cheney repeatedly upbraided Edwards for what, in his mind, amounted to flabby thinking.

“The senator’s got his facts wrong,” he said early on, with an attitude that he maintained throughout the evening, displaying no emotion but a hint of contempt.

“I have not suggested there is a connection between Iraq and 9/11,” he said.

Edwards spent less of the debate engaging Cheney than looking directly into the cameras. He gestured at Cheney repeatedly but rarely looked at him squarely, as if his aim was to rebut Cheney while speaking directly to the viewer at home.

“The American people don’t need us to explain this to them,” Edwards said, contradicting Cheney’s assessment of the progress in Iraq and addressing his true audience. “They see it over the television every single day.”

The reaction shots, which caught President Bush in moments of apparent impatience last week in his first debate with Sen. John F. Kerry, were less revealing here, though Cheney was seen displaying a repertoire of crooked grins, smirks and subtle sneers. Edwards, meanwhile, relied on a smile that could turn callow in its less convincing moments.

But the most striking visual of this debate, perhaps, was the continual note-taking of the two candidates. It was a tone established at the beginning, when Cheney and Edwards entered, shook hands, took their seats and immediately began writing on legal pads.

In ordinary times, this would have added to the sense of a civics exercise, and you wouldn’t have found yourself wondering what they were scribbling so intently. But we’re at a moment when “Face the Nation” can seem like compelling prime-time programming.