I'm not sure about that. He knew he was going to say that. He could have taken ten minutes to verify that he'd never met him, or had his speech writer or some other staffer do it, just like he got that same staffer to look up the fact that hos hometown newspaper refers to him as "Mr. Gone" (or whatever it was). He deliberately made that up for rhetoric. And the fact of the matter is that no matter how few people actually watch the debates, even fewer follow up on them, so the point will stick. It's a good sound bite on how Edwards is (admittedly) at the Senate meetings less often than he should be.