Howie Kurtz gets it right (for once):

It took Dick Cheney about five seconds to mention 9/11, in the course of justifying the Iraq war (and ducking a question about Paul Bremer saying the administration never sent enough troops).

That enabled John Edwards to say the Bush administration wasn't being straight on Iraq.

It took Cheney just a few minutes more to mention John Kerry's "global test" comment for military action in his debate against the president -- prompting Edwards to say Kerry had made perfectly clear that no other nation would have a veto over American security.

It took John Edwards 25 minutes to mention Halliburton -- and he kept mentioning it, as a symbol of what was wrong with the Iraq venture and corporate America (while never quite saying that the ex-CEO was reaping any financial benefit). Cheney dismissed all that as a "smokescreen."

It took Cheney about two seconds to give up a 90-second response on a followup question about gay marriage, after he'd suggested he didn't agree with the boss on a constitutional amendment. Edwards managed to praise the veep for defending his gay daughter while also saying he and Kerry oppose gay marriage while also accusing Bush of using the constitution as a political tool.

It took about a nanosecond for Edwards to turn a question about his lack of experience into an attack on Bush and Cheney for the wrong kind of experience. Cheney wisely didn't pile on, instead talking about his own selection as VP. Nor did Cheney, somewhat surprisingly, accept Gwen Ifill's invitation to hold trial lawyer Edwards personally responsible for the malpractice crisis.

Edwards closed by talking about his father in the mill. Cheney closed by talking about 9/11 and terrorism.