(Picture Courtesy of Time Magazine)
We all watched tonight’s Vice Presidential debate to see if Joe Biden or Sarah Palin would stumble. But Time Magazine rated them both a “B.” Neither one struck out – but neither one hit a home run either.
Time state that Biden “was more specific on national security matters than on domestic subjects. Offered more detail on a range of topics, compared to Palin, but oddly, gained no particular edge from his greater familiarity with national and international issues.”
Exactly! He knew his stuff but he was boring and uninteresting.
As for Palin, Time assessed her performance thusly, “In a debate of mostly general questions, she chose to never be any more specific than necessary.Had some planned policy points she was keen to make, but such moments were few and fleeting. Benefited from the format, which invited simplicity and avoided confrontation.”
I saw most of the debate. Biden brought up John McCain’s record again and again. But he didn’t have many great zingers. Biden was, as Time put it, “reassuringly stolid and tough,” but he appeared doughy and was not visually interesting.
The camera loves Palin, on the other hand. And she smirked and winked her way through the debate with her trademark Alaskan accent serving as a counterpoint to Biden’s blah blahs. And it drove me nuts that she pronounced nuclear in the Bush fashion – “Nucular.”
Time stated that Palin “Didn’t always directly answer the questions asked her, but deflected and hedged with offhand subtlety. Rarely took the bait when Biden faulted McCain. Was happy to resort to the safety of “maverick” imagery in a pinch.”
Time summed up Biden’s performance thusly, “Relentlessly criticized the Bush-McCain-Palin economic policies. Came across more in sadness than anger in deriding his long-time colleague, whom he repeatedly called “John.” Did next to nothing to try to force Palin into errors, which was likely a calculated strategy.”
Again, an accurate assessment. Biden rode McCain mercilessly but he was nice, for the most part, to Palin. I got the sense that he was holding back his real feelings.
So after all the build up, nobody won the debate.
In related news, we had fun at our debate watching party, at my house. Thank you to our supporters who stopped by and had a sausage sandwich, as my personal ode to President Grover Cleveland.
Couldn’t have said it better myself… so I wont. Take that Mike! Time Magazine agrees with me! 😛
Palin was surprisingly good, but the bar had been set so low.
SMS
I disagree with Time’s assessment and agree with Sarah: Palin WAS surprisingly good, but the bar didn’t elevate much higher than the gutter…
Biden was a gentleman. He was factual, patient and clearly knowledgeable.
Palin allowed her gender to justify being a rude, cold and calculating shrew. She was Stepfordly robotic. I will not, however, deny her praise in being able to retain and recite so much information after being coached for such a short period of time. She did an admirable job in that regard.
I haven’t heard much comment about the moderator in this debate. I thought her performance was, euphemistically speaking, lackluster. She didn’t elicit much reality from either candidate. Where’s Couric when you need her?
What this debate established for me is that Palin is very capable of delivering her lines well. But “heck,” that folksy, pseudo-sincere character she attempts to portray is obviously strained and HUGELY condescending if your IQ exceeds 100 points. Palin obviously doesn’t know shit about much except the pipelines of oil traversing Alaska.
What I gleaned from this debate: if Americans do not elect Obama-Biden, the economic crisis will pale in comparison to the educational deficit this country faces…
It’s an unfortunate state of affairs when you start to understand why your father expresses relief that he won’t be living in the next century but gravely fears for the fate of his grandchildren …
It’s all equal, yeah, let’s wallow in faux objectivity.
Sweet,
Please, Joe Bidden was condescending, just look a the ending handshake. That was an FU in body language, Bidden to Palin.
Palin sounds more “Mini soo tahn” to me than an Alsakan accent, but what do I know.
Longboobs is correct on all accounts. As a member of the National Forensic League for many years in Debate….we might mention in passing: You would be laughed off the stage in any meaningful event if you said: “I’m not going to answer the way anyone wants……I’m going to speak directly to the American people.”
The Reply: Great…get your own Reality TV show. In the meantime, as Donald Trump might say: “You’re Fired!”
Biden looked so old and tired, with bags under the eyes. Perky Sarah repeated “TRACK record! MAVerick! Joe Sixpack! Hockey Mom! MAVerick!” She easily stepped over the bar which had been hammered into the ground for her. I think the reason she did so much better tonight than with Couric or that other fella is that there were no follow-ups: Gwen was not allowed.
You’ll hear over the next few days of many mistakes she made which Joe was too gentlemanly to correct. Most notably, our general in Afghanistan – Joe was right about what he had said about the surge, she was wrong, she also got his name wrong, and Joe resisted correcting her.
She repeated at least one frequently-repeated McCain lie which has been repeatedly corrected – the “42,000 tax increase lie” Fact Check.Org: A TV spot claims Obama once voted for a tax increase “on people making just $42,000 a year.” That’s true for a single taxpayer, who would have seen a tax increase of $15 for the year – if the measure had been enacted. But the ad shows a woman with two children, and as a single mother, she would not have been affected unless she made more than $62,150. The increase that Obama once supported as part of a Democratic budget bill is not part of his current tax plan anyway.
She also lied repeatedly about Biden backing McCain’s positions on Iraq, which is completely untrue at least since 2004.
I bet she lost herself and McCain a lot of votes at one dramatic moment, on Iraq, when after hearing Obama’s plan to get out of Iraq, she called it “waving the white flag of surrender.” I imagine that was music to the ears… of about 15% of Americans.
They both earned their B’s. Except Biden was a lot more accurate and truthful, if that’s worth anything. And he really did concentrate on attacking McCain instead of her.
“Biden was a gentleman. He was factual, patient and clearly knowledgeable.”
He was the dyspeptic know-it-all type person you dislike so much when he attempted to correct Palin on the role of the Vice-president in Congress.
Biden thought that he was going to zap Palin with that one, but he came off looking condecending, overbearing and quite mean – much like yourself longboobs.
“I’m not going to answer the way anyone wants… ”
That is the manner politicians normally respond, Biden included – at least she was honest about it.
My favorite of the night was us middle class working parents now being renamed ‘hockey mom’ and ‘six-pack Joe’.
SMS…I agree with you; the bar was set REAL LOW for Palin.
Listening to the old gas bag Biden is tedious.
Listening to Palin is positively painful. She has got the beauty pageant non-answer down pat, plus a voice that seems (to me) like fingernails on a blackboard. The only reason she came off as even competent is because the format semed to preclude follow up questions. If it hadn’t she could have been asked to amplify her brainless generalities and the wheels would have come off. She would have repeated the same drivel all over again with a few other folksy aphorisms thrown in. And Biden stuck to the plan: don’t appear to pick on the female.
The Republic is in trouble.
…and lest I forget – that annoying break into a wide smile (seemingly late on cue) part-way through each “answer.” Scary.
He was the dyspeptic know-it-all type person you dislike so much when he attempted to correct Palin on the role of the Vice-president in Congress….Biden thought that he was going to zap Palin with that one, but he came off looking condecending, overbearing and quite mean…“I’m not going to answer the way anyone wants… ” That is the manner politicians normally respond, Biden included – at least she was honest about it…
Spin, spin, spin Dr. Junior… you are the Doctor of Spin! Biden bit his tongue and almost never corrected her glaring errors, exhibiting his DISCIPLINE by focusing his attacks on her running mate. And if Gwen had not been disallowed from follow-ups we woulda seen good old Deer in the Headlights Sarah like we did with Couric. I’ll go find some and I’ll get ’em TO YA!!! 😛
The Republic is in trouble.
Not in all scenarios, Zenger. Unless it’s gonna be that horrifying to have a “tedious” VP.
*Biden had ONE chance NOT to be a Mean Spirited jerk! He was a complete Gentleman and thereby a success…and someone the people of the United States will be very proud of as Vice President.
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David Brooks, The New York Times:
“Still, this debate was about Sarah Palin. She held up her end of an energetic debate that gave voters a direct look at two competing philosophies. She established debating parity with Joe Biden. And in a country that is furious with Washington, she presented herself as a radical alternative.”
Vern, I would really hate to be bored to death. But seriously, what I meant is that I don’t think Obama is going to save the day. I would be much more sanguine if I knew there would be a Republican Congress (that actuially acted like fiscal conservatives), but that’s not going to happen.
I am not optimistic.
Last night’s affair was “B” political theatre. Biden looked old and tired and Palin was fresh and full of energy. Biden has had plenty of guffaws in his near 4 decade political life. I wish we’d hear more about Biden voting for the Bridge to Nowhere.
It ain’t what you say, but how you say it that gets you ahead in the real world. While an academic will easily spot the errors and superficiallity in Palin’s presentations, it ain’t the academics who elect presidents. The Times ran an article which quoted people who know her well and warned, “do not underestimate Sarah Palin” She’s a very, very talented and smart woman who knows her target audience very well.
Wow, Junior, I obviously hit a nerve.
Now had you really wanted to insult me, you would have compared me to Sarah Palin. So if you perceive Biden as “condecending (sic), overbearing and quite mean,” I couldn’t be more pleased to share those attributes with him. Joe and I must be two peas in a pod, because that was one of my favorite parts of the debate!
Throwing kisses. Winking at the cameras. Deliberately refusing to answer direct debate questions, showing once again that she really is a “maverick” that doesn’t have to play by the rules of the ordinary players. Folksy talk thrown into a national debate. Style over substance. Oh, and you can forget about unscripted “interviews” – there is a “media filter” that corrupts her façade. Behind the scenes, she is thumbing her nose at troopergate’s attempt to determine if she destroyed a long-time public servant’s career in a snit.
Sarah Palin is a huckster. She’s slick. She’s selling stuff to whoever will buy it. She’s an instigator, a bully and a shill. Her measuring bar is lying prone on the ground and all that is required is for her to keep breathing and simply step over it.
She won’t be held accountable in her role as governor. She won’t be held accountable for sticking to basic questions during a debate. She won’t be answering questions freely.
McCain found a natural huckster. That’s her strong point.
Art,
A lot of the best people are “boring”. They go to their jobs, they get the jobs done and the company/organization/country benefit by their consistent efforts.
Here is a Rolling Stone’s summation of the VP debates. I have a more favorite quote from the article, but it is really quite crude, so you’ll have to access the link if you want to read more of the commentary:
The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters. Hicks root for hicks, moms for moms, born-agains for born-agains. Sure, there was politics in the Palin speech, but it was all either silly lies or merely incidental fluffery buttressing the theatrical performance. A classic example of what was at work here came when Palin proudly introduced her Down-syndrome baby, Trig, then stared into the camera and somberly promised parents of special-needs kids that they would “have a friend and advocate in the White House.” This was about a half-hour before she raised her hands in triumph with McCain, a man who voted against increasing funding for special-needs education.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23318320/mad_dog_palin
“Her measuring bar is lying prone on the ground and all that is required is for her to keep breathing and simply step over it.”
And who has set the bar so low? Who continues to set the bar low?
answer: The liberal media, Red Vixen and their ilk.
Thank you Red Vixen – keep up the good work !
Red – I really do appreciate the caricacture of “bulldog” Palin. Isn’t that the job of the VP candidate? Watch out dearie, you’ll get your ass bit !
I thought the beauty queen was much cuter than the used car salesman. He talked too much. She winked at me, I wonder if she’d like to go out for a beer?