On the opposing podium stood the Human Gaffe Machine, Joe Biden. Despite his endorsement of McCain and condemnation of The Marxist (Obama) back in the primaries, he came to bring the messianic message of The Marxist. Oh, and he blamed Bush.
Perhaps I shouldn't have worried though. The left has spent every waking moment since the GOP convention attacking Sarah for her lack of intelligence, her lack of eloquence, her inexperience, her womanhood, and her skill field dressing a moose (New Palin slogan: Wild Game For All?). So the perception being put out there, strangthened by her weak-assed interviews, was that she was a quarter-witted, inbred, hillbilly woman. So all she had to do to come out ahead was to show up and string some cogent sentences together.
Well, she did better than that. She stood toe to toe (as Biden didn't taste toejam much for once) with Biden for 90 minutes, trading jabs, policies, and facts. And she was the Sarah I was waiting to hear.Not that she was perfect. Too often she seemed to be repeating talking points for McCain. In fairness, this is the job of a VP candidate, and Biden was obliged to do so as well. And Biden could articulate those talking points a wee bit better. But when it came to engaging the people and each other, Sarah came off much better.
I will give credit to Biden on his indignation when he talked about being a single father. I tend to favor that group of guys for some reason. I did cheer him for at least 10 seconds, until he got back into the standard class warfare bullshit attack.
And while I will admit some bias on this declaration, based on expectations, polls, and general perception, the VP debate goes to Sarah Palin! Kind of makes me wish she was at the top of the ticket and could tear into The Marxist. I'd almost pay to watch that.
Finally, my fears of Sarah's inability to perform have been cleansed away. However, as the VP debates generally are not as important, it falls to McCain not to drag his dick in the dirt, lose the momentum, and run the Straight Talk Express off the road.
21 comments:
I disagree.
We didn't watch the whole thing because we had to go to bed, but I got tired fast of what appeared to me to be a 'cute tactic' when she was getting pinned in the corner (and yeah, she's cute, and yeah, my husband hates her but he agreed with the guy who said we favor).
I was glad that Gail called her out on disagreeing with five SoS including Kissinger on the need to negotiate without preconditions. She weaseled around a definitive comeback, but Gail wasn't fooled.
Joe was thorough, showed his own opinions and passions and had his shit in a row. He never looked ruffled, nervous, or caught off guard, which she did (or did you miss her calling him Obiden? Do you REALLY think she did that deliberately?)
I got tired fast of her going on and on about being in an "energy producing state" as if this makes everything else she lacks unimportant. Let's not get me started on fucking up the ANWR, okay? cause it's damn early and I'm damn tired.
Biden kicked ass.
She wasn't horrible and he neither was he. In the end, neither did anything to hurt their campaigns.
A draw at best, which is a win for Palin.
But as the polls are a;; seemingly heading Obamas way, will it matter?
Saty: I give Biden credit for doing what he had to. But the undecided were absolutely watching the debate to judge Sarah. And she came through as Biden's equal, and a lot more charming to boot. That gives her the win. Not a spectacular knockout, but a win nonetheless.
We'll have to get into what it really takes to fuck up tundra (ANWR) later, though.
Dave: I'm hoping it will make a difference. Sarah is the difference for me between voting for McCain and letting the country burn at the touch of The Marxist.
And she came through as Biden's equal, and a lot more charming to boot. That gives her the win. Not a spectacular knockout, but a win nonetheless.
Well yes, you think she was the winner because she's always been your gal. But the independents watching did not think she was a winner. None. They went for Biden 2 to 1. Okay. Not in your wildest dreams is Palin Joe Biden's "equal." He's forgotten more about foreign policy than she's learned in her two weeks of prepping for this debate.
The Republican base would have loved her no matter what she did.
Now. Let's see what David Brooks, a very conservative columnist for the NYTimes said about her performance:
"...it was immediately clear that the night would be filled with tales of soccer moms, hockey moms, Joe Sixpacks, main-streeters, "you betchas" and "darn rights."
"On Thursday night, Palin took her inexperience and made a mansion out of it...[B]eyond that, Palin broke no new ground, though she toured the landscape of McCain policy positions with surprising fluency."
Here are some of her direct quotes to the questions Ifill directed to her:
Asked about Israel, Palin reeled off her support for "a two-state solution, building our embassy also in Jerusalem, those things that we look forward to being able to accomplish with this peace-seeking nation."
Asked about using nuclear weapons, she declared "nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people and too many parts of our planet."
Wow! Brilliant. This is apparently what the Right believes is great foreign policy insight. In fact, it's babbling. She said nothing in those two instances.
I'm glad the debate is over. We can take our attention off Palin and get back to the two candidates at the top of the ticket.
Unfortunately for the McCain campaign, those images of Palin from the Gibson, Couric, and the night-at-the pub in Philly during the presidential debate, are seared in people's minds, and she's stuck with the image of a ditsy small-town, small-minded politician.
McCain just pulled his people out of Michigan.
That's the real story here. Not that Palin didn't fall flat on her face and was able to sound coherent.
And the stock market is in trouble.
Shaw: I was waiting for your inanity. So here we go....
Well yes, you think she was the winner because she's always been your gal.
I freely admit I was going to like her unless she really crashed and burned. But that's why I didn't make a final decision on a winner until I got the focus group data.
But the independents watching did not think she was a winner.
Which half-ass group were you watching, CBS or CNN? I usually go with the Frank Luntz focus group. They usually seem to be a good middle of the road bunch and they were almost all swayed by Sarah. They usually split more along ideological lines.
As for the Brooks quotes, I agree. But that's the worst of her problems is having to carry water for McCain.
As far as I can tell, you seem to have a problem that she doesn't converse fluently in wonk-speak, which I guess is how you measure intellect. Look at your candidate, The Marxist. Said nothing longer and better than most people. Now he, uh, has, um, to, uh, er, come off, uh, as though, um, he, um...(I'll stop out of kindness and brevity).
Now I can't say everything she said was the end-all in cogent statements, just as you can't say the same of Biden. But half of the debate is substance, where they were even because while Biden had more substantial answers in many cases, they were full of much more in the way of bullshit and gaffes than any empty comment Sarah was reeling off.
On style, well, we get back to a policy wonk who has bee doing this almost as long as I've been pissing upright versus someone who can easily talk to almost anyone (except the rabid liberals) and they can understand her.
McCain just pulled his people out of Michigan.
And the stock market is in trouble.
Well, I never had too much confidence in McCain, did I? And the stock market thing is the direct result of bipartisan bullshit. If you doubt that, then you haven't read my post on it yet, where I thank many an idiot for screwing the country again.
I love the title of your post :-)!!
I will get your post added to my links on mine.
I thought she did great in the Gibson interview, despite the editing. I still haven't seen the Couric interview, but I couldn't believe how many on our side were willing to throw her under the bus for one bad interview. And now they all owe her a HUGE apology.
When you think about how well she did last night and the fact that she went toe to toe with someone who has had 30 years in Washington, its even more impressive.
Palin is the perfect exclamation point to the Bush years and an administration that created it own reality--and actually believed it!
Just for an example of how the right doesn't do any hard lifting when it comes to close examination of their candidates--especially Palin--let me give you an example of how Palin sounds, but then what she is actually referring to:
In her closing remarks in the debate on Thurs., she quoted Ronald Reagan (after chiding Biden for looking backward instead of forward, she quotes a very dead president). Reagan had warned that if Americans weren't vigilant in protecting their freedom, they would find themselves spending their "sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in America when men were free."
This menace to freedom Reagan was talking about was Medicare (you can look it up in google). Reagan saw Medicare as the advance wave of socialism, which would invade every area of freedom in this country.
If you have any family members or friends 65 or older, ask them how Medicare took away their freedom.
That's just one example of how Palin was fed a quote without having any clue to its origin. Just like a beloved parrot, she squawked in the right place and said the right words to tickle the feathers of her flock.
Look. You guys loved the fact that up front she declared that she wouldn't answer questions she didn't like "I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear."
In college, she would have received a D on any exam where she pulled that idiotic crap. Why should she get away with it now that she wants the 2nd most powerful job in the country. Who does she think she is? Some anointed Giver of Bromides?
You guys loved her performance. You didn't examine her answers. If you had you would be embarrassed that you could support someone with so small a grasp of complex issues.
Palin's grasp at how serious our problems are can be reduced to her juvenile response to Biden when he mocked the rightwing mantra and said it was "drill, drill, drill."
Palin--looking triumphant, as though she were solving the energy and Wall Street crises, corrected Biden and made sure we Americans knew he was wrong--the correct chant is "drill, baby, drill," not "drill, drill, drill." wink. wink.
Well good for you, Sarah. That was a critically important point to make.
On another blog, I saw a post that said Palin's winking at the camera was like "somebody's Mom hitting on you." This is what makes her irresistible to some types of men and creepy to others. They're betting the 1st group is bigger than the 2nd.
Palin new to the scene showed she could stand toe to toe with Joe Biden, a man who has been in the Senate since I was a kid. Biden is the problem and has never ventured from his hard left positions. Palin comes across as fresh, hopeful and future looking. Biden is the sad past.
Well.
No question the bar has been substantially lowered after eight years of GWB.
Still.
That Palin not performing quite as poorly as expected translates into 'victory' in the VP debate perfectly illustrates the combination of wishful thinking and sheer delusion which defines the GOP circa 2008.
Can't be easy being one of you.
Cheers.
I've never liked Charles Krauthammer--not since he diagnosed John Kerry and pronounced him insane in his Washington Post column in the 2004 election. Ethical doctors don't commit such atrocities, and usually lose their licenses when they do. He certainly deserved that--not that he practices anymore anyway--he has a license for psychiatry.
But just this past week, Krauthammer, a very hard right conservative had this to say about Patrick's favorite Marxist, "Barry."
"He's been moderate in policy and temper ever since. His one goal: Pass the Reagan '80 threshold. Be acceptable, be cool, be reassuring.
Part of reassurance is intellectual. Like Palin, he's a rookie, but in his 19 months on the national stage he has achieved fluency in areas in which he has no experience. In the foreign policy debate with McCain, as in his July news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama held his own -- fluid, familiar and therefore plausibly presidential.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a "second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament." Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president."
When you've got one of your own very hard right conservative agreeing that Sen. Obama is the man for the office, then you know you're in real, real trouble.
That wasn't some dewy eyed, latte sipping liberal who wrote that.
He's one of you.
Dee: Considering my inspiration for the title was a movie staring Madonna...
Shaw: Rather than answer you exactly, I'll take the Sarah route.
I remember one of my college classes (when I was still politically naive). It was an economics class, the prof was into Noam Chomsky (who I knew nothing about at this point), and I failed that sumbitch of a class handily for failure to regurgitate shit.
I will easily agree that Sarah has some more fleshing out to do on her (or more specifically McCain's) policy positions. But if you hadn't noticed, this isn't a college class where the grades are given by leftist professors that lack the testicular fortitude to have their worldview challenged.
And the fact that you surspect the same things about Sarah that I do is the reason you're so ready to believe she's the biggest idiot since Dan Quayle after a lobotomy.
As for Krauthammer, I can agree with his assessment of The Marxist. It's been a run to the middle for him since beating Hillary, and he has reached the point where it is very likely he will be elected because of perceptions about him. The quote you provided though is an honest assessment, though, not an endorsement. Somehow (no surprise here) you take it to mean a ringing endorsement of your messiah.
Anon, Conservative: That sounds about right.
Arthur: Got tired of your lifetime ban from Mike?
The GOP is under few delusions. They're saddled with such a centrist candidate that Sarah is an improvement to the ticket.
As for me, since I'm not a Republican, it's just frustrating having a choice between a halfass (McCain) and The Marxist.
Seriously? Just because she gave you a stiffy doesn't mean she won the debate. I agree, she defied expectations (besides the question dodging) but she didn't even come close to "winning" the debate. And if you think she should be at the top of the ticket you have more problems than originally expected.
Conservative said: "Palin comes across as fresh, hopeful and future looking."
To me it's more like someone who knows just enough to be dangerous and who vastly overestimates her cognitive abilities...
Toad: At least there's no man-ass-sex involved. Wait, maybe that's why you don't like her.
If I had the ability to put Sarah on top of the ticket and kick McCain to the curb, I'd take it in a heartbeat. She's not been damaged by DC yet, so there's a chance she won't piss me off.
John: What I said to Toad.
Ya but she been damaged by the lack of experience, intelligence, knowledge, qualifications, education, etc.
I mean you really think "I can see Russia from my house", counts as foreign policy experience? She's worse than a female version of Dan Quayle, she's an empty suit with a set of tits and a rifle, period. Thats what you like about her. You can't talk about small government and then use your power in the government to settle a spat between your sister and her husband.
Toad: Thanks for the talking points.
Interesting side note. One of the few politicians Ive seen in my life was Dan Quayle. I have very good instincts about people when I first meet them (unless I want to bone them), and Dan Quayle, for all the mocking he received, was one of the better people in politics. It's really too bad the good people get pushed aside for the most conniving. In other words, most of the successful (both Democrat and Republican) have to sell their souls to somebody to get where they are.
That's how I feel about Edwards. Quayle was no Edwards and neither is Palin.
They are points people are talking about because they are legitimate concerns. Until someone can put those to rest they will continue to be talked about until November 5th once Obama trounces McCain. Yes, I said trounce. Obama could possibly end up with over 350 electoral votes. That is of course unless McCain can find a dead white girl somewhere in Obamas past.
Toad: Don't get me started on Edwards. Dan Quayle's career didn't end with the National Enquirer dogging him in a hotel room. I could go on, but you know where I'll go.
But this is the reason I finally went for McCain (against my better judgment): Anyone who attracts supporters that have to make every fucking thing into a racial issue is not the right man for the job. The mindset alone betrays a dangerous obsession with righting wrongs, whether they exist or not. And The Marxist's reliance on the class warfare argument is the same thing. Strangely that brings me back to my real issue with John Edwards, so I'll stop.
You see class warfare as poor people trying to feed their kids and get Exxon to reduce the price of gas while they make record profits. I see class warfare as the rich exporting jobs, sticking the middle class to pay the bills, cooking their books, taking our tax money to go on corporate retreats.
So, our definition of class warfare is very different. McCain is preaching class warfare, class warfare nor for the poor but to benefit the rich. And I think the race card is probably being played more on the right than it is the left. By saying Obama is only going to get votes in VA, NC and the bigger cities because he is black, not because he is qualified, and then taking the statements, not made by Obama but made by someone he knows and saying that since he knows this guy he must believe the same, trying to scare white Americans, so who is playing the race card?
And because a guy, like about 40% of all married people do, had an affair, doesn't mean his message was flawed. Idaho and Louisiana still have their congressmen so apparently a little infidelity doesn't corrupt the ultimate message.
Toad, two points: Class warfare is pitting one class against another. It's an old Marxist tactic to get the stupid to do the work while you become the "benevolent" dictator. It's a reason I support things like the FairTax; because it takes the power to use the tax as a class warfare tool away from government.
The race card, which pisses me off even more, is something the libs, yourself included, keep bringing up. So what that has to do with this conversation is beyond me.
And I didn't say infidelity corrupts the message. It should be a reason the rep doesn't come back to Washington. And Edwards is irrelevant now, so I won't waste my time on him.
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