CHENEY: … And if I were to look for one where there was a miscalculation on my part, I think I underestimated the difficulty of getting an Iraqi government stood up. …

MR. LEHRER: Is it fair to say, then, that the miscalculation resulted in chaotic situation that existed immediately after for awhile and got – immediately after the invasion and all that sort of stuff?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I can’t say that. I can’t link those –

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: – two particular points. What I can say is I think if we had been able to move more rapidly to stand up a government that was capable, I think we might have avoided some of that.

Ah, rigor! To be rigorous, you really do have to conclude that there’s no concrete way of saying that if there had been an Iraqi government “stood up” immediately after the invasion, there would have been no descent into chaos. That’s the peril of the counterfactual conditional. Somehow, though Cheney didn’t seem to insist on such rigor when linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda in order to get the war that will forever define his legacy.

Newsweek reports this quote from Barack Obama while he was preparing for a debate — a quote which, as an environment reporter, I absolutely love.

“I don’t consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that's green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f***ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective.’”

From an environmental perspective, what I like about this quote is that it highlights the needs to address the root problems of climate change and to come up with large-scale solutions.

From an observer’s standpoint, the quote confirms my longtime feeling that the basic format of these debates produces an outcome that’s contrived, rehearsed and insincere. The funny thing is, Jim Lehrer, who moderated the first presidential debates, feels the same way.

According to Lawrence O’Donnell, a writer for “The West Wing,” Lehrer told him that he has wanted to break with the format for a long time. O’Donnell tried to get Lehrer to appear on “The West Wing” to host a fictional presidential debate in which the candidates, played by Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits, would completely break with the usual format and engage with each other — ie., have a real debate.

While Lehrer couldn’t appear on the show because of a PBS rule that he wrote, he reportedly wanted to emulate the fictional debate, asking debate commissioners to watch tapes of the show to get some pointers. That’s why Lehrer tried to get Obama and Sen. John McCain to actually talk to each other.

O’Donnell talked about all this in commentary on MSNBC here.

Jim Lehrer backstage at this year's Democratic National Convention. (Credit: PBS)

The New York Times reports that Lehrer sent an email making this point in advance of tonight’s debate, if there is one: “I am not restrained from asking questions about the financial crisis.” He even added a happy sign-off: “Stay tuned!”

That message carries some weight, because Lehrer and the Debate Commission have assiduously tried to avoid “taking sides” between the candidates’ diverging views on the debate. Yet the organizers are obviously invested in pulling the debate off as planned, with both nominees in attendance.

However, by proactively announcing a shift towards economic topics, which was not in the original plan, Lehrer may be slightly advancing Obama’s argument that the debate is part of working toward national consensus on addressing the financial crisis — not a distraction from it, as McCain has asserted.