Thoughts on last night's VP debate

I haven’t yet read anything from the spin room. I've only talked to a handful of people at length. So I thought this'd be the optimal time, before my mind gets totally corrupted, to give my short two cents on last night’s debate.

1. Most importantly – Biden kicked ass. He was clear and straightforward, but also honest and gracious. When he spoke, I believed every word he said.
2. Biden also showed tremendous restraint. I know that’s what he had to do, but man I really wish he had pounced on some of Palin’s responses. She flubbed names and circled the issues, and I really wish Biden had called her on it.
3. On that note – umm, seriously Palin? Winking at the audience and dodging literally ALL the questions? We must have heard about her energy policy 5 times, if not more. We know she governs the HUGE, energy-producing state of Alaska, but doesn't she have anything else to talk about? I guess not.
4. But because Palin sounded literate, we will hear the “she nailed it!” spin. Of course. So, Palin, bravo for stringing sentences together. You get a Reading Rainbow certificate of appreciation.
5. And I’m just going to throw this out there: How the HELL are we going to solve the environmental crisis if we don’t first acknowledge the cause of the problem? Logically, that makes ZERO sense.
6. The format sucked. Big time. It favored canned speeches and memorized answers.
7. Along those lines, with all due respect to Ifill, I really wish she had demanded that each candidate (Palin more so) stick to the issue at hand. I remember watching the primary debates, and man oh man Tim Russert really forced the candidates to answer the actual questions. I would have liked to see something similar from Ifill. Oh well.
8. And one other thing, are you kidding me with the “McCain suspended his campaign for the economy” play? McCain didn’t save the economy. He barely “suspended” his campaign, if at all. Can we just call that for what it was – a pure political play?

There’s my pre-spin room rant. If you watched the debate last night, what did you think?

Update: Ok I went into the Internet spin room (I had to!!!). And I found this awesome Palin debate flowchart.

Comments

[pdaddy]

When Sarah Palin winked at camera, I felt she was winking right at me and my heart went all aflutter. Maybe it is a guy thing, but she really connected with me. I honestly cannot see why any red-blooded American man would not want her to be the VP -- she can memorize the playbook; she is really pretty; she wears nice clothes; and most important, she stands by her (Mc)-man! She is the stepford wife turned politician...and what's so bad about that? (wink)

http://www.horror-wood.com/stepford.htm

[bg]

Russert would’ve kept everyone honest, bless his heart!

[Manny Stevens]

During that debate, I just saw a lot of sexual tension between Palin and Biden. And the moderator was clearly jealous...of Biden (wink).

[Suldog]

As a Libertarian, perhaps with a slight leaning towards conservatism more than liberalism, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of courtesy from both candidates. I came away with the feeling that both participants would probably be pleasant people to know personally.

Having said that, there is little doubt that imagining Sarah Palin as a possible occupant of The Oval Office has its scary side. People have painted her as dumb, which she isn't, by a longshot. However, she truly does not have enough grasp of (all) the issues. Those she knows, she's fairly well-versed on. But she needs much more.

I'm no friend of Biden. I haven't forgotten how he plagiarized speeches years back, nor how he excoriated Obama in their debates, but seems to have conveniently forgotten that now. But, after last night, I have a great deal more respect for the man. He is eloquent, seems genuinely friendly, and he appears to know his stuff.

My two cents? The win goes to Biden. Give Palin another few years of real-world experience, though, and seeing a rematch would be lots of fun.

[Suldog]

As a Libertarian, perhaps with a slight leaning towards conservatism more than liberalism, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of courtesy from both candidates. I came away with the feeling that both participants would probably be pleasant people to know personally.

Having said that, there is little doubt that imagining Sarah Palin as a possible occupant of The Oval Office has its scary side. People have painted her as dumb, which she isn't, by a longshot. However, she truly does not have enough grasp of (all) the issues. Those she knows, she's fairly well-versed on. But she needs much more.

I'm no friend of Biden. I haven't forgotten how he plagiarized speeches years back, nor how he excoriated Obama in their debates, but seems to have conveniently forgotten that now. But, after last night, I have a great deal more respect for the man. He is eloquent, seems genuinely friendly, and he appears to know his stuff.

My two cents? The win goes to Biden. Give Palin another few years of real-world experience, though, and seeing a rematch would be lots of fun.

[RyanB]

pdaddy -
So you must have noticed her shiny black suit and bejeweled American flag label pin. Those little touches were for you and only you!

suldog -
I think Palin painted herself as dumb. She's become a parody of herself... a transformation that I can only attribute to her own actions.

[pdaddy]

Yes, that pin really caught my eye (the one that wasn't rather continuously winking back at my Sarah), and oh, what a satiny dress suit! (...or suit dress, or whatever it is called) But even more than that, I was so captivated by her folksy persona -- when she spoke about Joe-Six pack it really resonated with me. (And my wife liked Palin, too, because she [my wife] is a soccer mom to my son, who, yes... plays soccer!) And, I must say that I was so impressed...no haunted... by Palin's stepford thing. Spooky and sexy at the same time. I really think that it all got the best of me -- her wink, her dress, her lapel, her haunting stepford thing -- so much so that later, after the debate was over, I could not remember a single substantive point about any of her policy positions, save some vague stuff about her being a 'maverick' who's on a 'good ticket' with her man McCain. And that's a shame, because according to Ed Rollins on CNN and some other conservatives on talk radio, she really had a lot to say. I can't believe I am so shallow that I got swept away by her eye (not her eyes, exactly), her satin dress, he bejeweled pin, her folksy tone, her maverick image, and her sexy obsequiousness that I missed all the important things she said.

[CT]

The ‘P-Daddy’ posts are pretty funny. Not quite as funny as the heavyweight championship horrendousness of the real Diddy’s actual blog entries, but close enough.

What’s not so funny is how closely ‘Daddy’ apes what a (supposedly) respectable establishment conservative wrote in the National Review Online’s blog The Corner.

This, from Rich Lowry, the magazines Editor-In-Chief:

“I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.”

No mention of policy points made or missed mind you. Just this sudden quickening in his chair because he felt he’d been hit on in HD.

There’s blog-post fodder in there somewhere… an examination of the sanity-sapping effects of Viagra on our national politics perhaps?

[CNKeach]

Well I tried to sit through the whole thing, but I just couldn't. So I watched, turned away, watched, etc. After about the fourth time of this, I realized what the problem was for me. Sarah Palin reminds me of Dana Carvey's "Church Lady." Remember her? Palin's simultaneously perky, smug and snide delivery of vapid responses to the questions is so similar to the "church lady" -- sorta like a 7th grade gossip-girl on steroids. And this is who McCain wants us to consider as a possible VP, and (maybe) president if he doesn't make it through a term. Geez.

[pdaddy]

CT,

Daddy don't 'ape' anyone -- especially not the conservatives when it comes to Palin. In fact, that's why I don't even like apes--they can't be ironical (at least I never met one that was), and they generally lack a senses of humor.

But the real reason I don't like apes anymore is that my Sarah doesn't like them very much. Word has it that there are just too many of them running around in Alaska. They are scaring people; and when those coastal apes stand upright for a few moments to look around and get some fresh air, they block Sarah's view of Russia. So, naturally, she is trying to remove all of them from Alaska. And I think I'll go up there and help her. Once I get up there, if any ape comes up to me and tries to capture me -- or even just wants to have a conversation -- I'll turn around and say, "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn, dirty ape!!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRG6ahCs_t0

And then I'll strip down, pick up my gun, and shoot it -- just like my Sarah would do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4UIlENLJx4&feature=related

Seriously, though, I don't like apes because too many people think of them as biological precursors to humans. And that's just wrong. There's gotta be a way to discredit principles of evolution--and, you betcha, my Sarah is working on it. She, like a lot of other canny human beings here in the U.S., is working out a way to try to get around the 'Establishment Clause' in the First Amendment to the Constitution. That's the Amendment that says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." In a nutshell, my smart Sarah propounds that public schools should teach principles of evolution alongside those of 'intelligent design.' Both are 'just theories,' you see, so they should be taught side by side. That way, perhaps, students will learn the scientific merit of both theories, and maybe, just maybe, decide that evolution is a bunch of hooey--that either there's no stinking way humans descended from those damn dirty apes, or that the hand of God and not the natural transmutation of species allowed such a change to occur. Either way, we'd be able to justify the claim that humans were created whole-cloth by God. How intelligent! And notice, too, that Sarah brought all of this up in her Governor's race--and she won, right? (I know, I know, she downplayed this theme in her Governor's campaign and in her Katie Couric interview--but that's all part of the Trojan horse strategy to discredit evolution. And that strategy shows that my Sarah is much smarter than an ape.)

http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/elections/story/8347904p-8243554c.html

Now, if only those damn, dirty judges in the Federal Courts would wise up. You know, just before Sarah's 2006 run for Governor, a landmark decision (Kitzmiller vs. Dover) was made in a Federal Court in Harrisburg, PA. On December 20, 2005, in addressing the question as to whether Intelligent Design is in fact science, Judge John Jones III ruled that, "it is not, and moreover, that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/05-12-20.html

But I know my smart Sarah will keep working on putting the hand of God back into the study of evolution. I have faith in her. You betcha!!