Liveblogging Absurdity
“Can I call you Joe?” And so it begins.
Straight to the bailout. Biden declares the policies of the last eight years to be the worst ever. Wall Street running wild! Biden goes into his recitation of Obama’s four principles of bailout. Palin: fear at soccer games is the barometer of economic troubles. Oversight and reform are needed–McCain offers reform. No one wanted to listen to McCain, but he brought people together–that must be why the House rejected the bailout. Palin: The American workforce is strong! A team of mavericks has a track record of reform. Obama is not bipartisan–so there. Get ‘er done. Americans want change, not more of the same.
Who’s to blame? Palin: Predator lenders! Greed on Wall Street. Borrowers have no responsibility. Joe Sixpacks and Hockey Moms working together. It has been ten minutes, and she hasn’t said anything yet. Biden: Wall Street running wild! Palin: Tax relief is needed. Where did that come from? She goes back to her old line about Obama and the 94 times he didn’t cut taxes. She has entirely missed the point of her chance at rebuttal; Biden scores an easy point on McCain and deregulation. Palin is harping on taxes. Straight talk! McCain is a super-regulator.
Biden says that the middle class should have tax cuts; Palin says that Biden is wrong–the middle class should have tax cuts. Palin took on oil companies–not like that oil magnate-loving Obama. She is randomly looking for ways to talk about Alaska. She completely evaded the original question. Nothing needs to be sacrificed because of the financial crisis. Biden notes that Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska, which is true, and adds that Obama wants to do the same thing. Palin: corruption and greed on Wall Street, the mortgage lenders reared their head–just like Putin, I’m sure–and McCain fought them with reform. There’s a toxic mess.
Palin’s record on energy returns yet again. She has nothing else to talk about. What does this have to do with bankruptcy regulations? She mentioned both energy independence and hungry markets–drink! She was focused on “climate change impacts” with her sub-cabinet. “Drill, baby, drill is the chant.” Palin agrees to capping carbon emissions–way to stay on message. Biden tries to save himself on his bungled clean coal statement.
Biden “absolutely, positively” supports giving benefits to homosexual couples. The response should be interesting. Palin is not interested in redefining marriage. But she’s very tolerant–she has a diverse group of friends! Good grief. She’s being as straight up as she can be. Biden does not support gay marriage, but commends Palin on her support for civil benefits. Everyone agrees!
Palin lauds the “surge” and Petraeus. Here we go. Biden points out that Palin offered no plan. No end in sight for the war for McCain. Palin: white flag of surrender! The “surge” worked! Palin respects Biden so much that she can’t believe that he works with Obama. Biden: God love him, but McCain is dead wrong. Biden is focused on Pakistan.
Palin: Petraeus and Al Qaeda agree that Iraq is the central front. Don’t they cancel each other out? Iran cannot be allowed to have nukes, full stop. Ahmadinejad is crazy! Obama is a dangerous talker. Kissinger returns to the scene. Palin: they hate us for our freedom. Yawn. Biden: McCain’s Zapatero gaffe is unbelievable.
Palin: Two-state solution is the solution. No second Holocaust–that’s reassuring, I suppose. Put the embassy in Jerusalem–that’ll be the day. Biden: The policy of the administration has been an abject failure. Not much you can say against that. Palin: Everyone loves Israel. Yay! Don’t worry about the past. Cliches abound–McCain has been a maverick. I think I’ve heard that before.
Biden sounds incredulous. You can tell that he can’t believe he has to be in this debate. Palin is for nonproliferation. That’s nice. “Surge” principles in Afghanistan. Palin has no clue what’s going on in Afghanistan. She doesn’t know that there hasn’t been a heavy reliance on airstrikes that have killed many civilians. Biden cites a general in Afghanistan saying that a “surge” won’t work. Palin says that’s not so.
Biden: Americans have a stomach for success. Intervention galore. Biden lies about his vote for invading Iraq. Here comes Darfur; Biden is back to his no-fly zone obsession. Is anyone buying anything Palin says? “We can agree about that also,” she says of Darfur. She supported divestment from Sudan. Palin is preoccupied with Biden’s war vote–who’s talking about the past now? McCain will learn from his own blunders. Biden: This election is super-important; I am like John Nance Garner. Palin: A team of mavericks, ANWR–drink!
Palin looks like she’s about to laugh as she rattles off her spiel. Biden plays the “are you better off today?” card. “There you go again,” Palin says. Did she really say that? She says that Biden’s wife’s reward is in heaven–is that in exchange for not getting paid very well?
Alex Massie speaks for all of us: “I too want extra credit for watching this.”
Palin: people aren’t looking for more of the same. Does she know which side she’s on? Biden: McCain’s not a real maverick! As they start to wrap up, I will admit that Palin has avoided disaster. Biden has put in a pretty successful performance. My guess is that Biden will come off as the clear winner in the eyes of viewers, but it will not be as lopsided as her critics expected.
[...] Larison [...]
Daniel, have I done something to upset God? Maybe I set too many rules for the Palin-Biden Debate Drinking Game, but they’re really living up to it. I’ve switched from whiskey to beer far earlier than I anticipated.
Good stuff, Daniel. I will say Palin is at least speaking in complete sentences, so she’s got that going for her.
As an Obama supporter, I have to say – Palin is just killing Biden. She is massacring him and he’s smiling as she is trampling all over him. On substance, the debate was painful – it was just regurgitating a lot of talking points. But damn, Barrucada baracuded all over Biden.
She didn’t say “reared their head” did she? Really? Damn, I must have been refilling my drink!
White Flag Of Surrender? Well, heck. Darn the luck.
Biden is cleaning her clock on foreign policy. The earlier stuff – eh, if her schtick plays well, it may not say much good about our system. But I suspect it may play well.
Biden just sighed! Game over?
Well, Palin is far exceeding my expectations. Sure, she’s mostly just spouting the McCain campaign’s usual tropes, but she’s speaking in complete sentences, and she seems infinitely more confident than she did with Katie Couric. She’s much closer to her performance at the RNC than to anything we’ve seen during the last few weeks.
Out of Iraq, into Darfur!
Or in the Palin version, stay in Iraq, go into Darfur!
I need to start drinking some harder stuff…
She isn’t killing him. She’s doing better than expected, because she decides to ignore whatever the question is if she doesn’t have a prepared attack.
I sense a pretty serious expectations effect here. I rather suspect that if we hadn’t heard the Gibson and Couric interviews, reactions to Palin’s performance would be more than a tad harsher here. On foreign policy, she really has made several out and out gaffes.
Stylisticly she was doing well for the first half hour. For the rest … well, she is speaking in complete sentences. Bully for her.
I can’t say that I’m that shocked at her “better than expected” performance. As I said earlier today in comments here, this format was much more favorable to her than the interview format.
It’s going to be really interesting to see what the average voter thinks about all of this. I still think that my other prediction may bear fruit. Of course, also alarming (from a GOP perspective) is that every time she mentions McCain’s name the viewer reaction is negative. I wonder if we underestimate the extent to which McCain’s recent cratering is a result of his own errors, as opposed to Palin dragging him down.
Oh boy, It’s Palin 2.0! This thing is an incoherent mess, because both are unable to tell the truth about anything. They are both utterly comprimised by the parameters of Serious (read: insane) opinion in Washington. I see raw imperialism on the march here. Economic ignorance. Pathological lying, exaggeration, and misrepresentation. Codescension and contempt for the public. Pure hubris. Nothing but bread and circuses. This cabal will be the dowfall of the country. They are anything but serious. I hear the theme from “Brazil” playing in my head.
Apparently the focus group viewers don’t like a lot of her answers. I don’t know why. I’ll have more on this later.
My bet is that when the insta-polls come out in the hour or two after the debate Palin will get the nod.
You gotta dig the “say it ain’t so, Joe” as well as the “there you go again”. Rehearsed? Oh ,Hell no.
Oops, before your comment, Daniel. Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that…obviously.
“there you go again” as something to dig? If that plays well, I officially give up on the American people (it was the kind of line that, the first time it was used, one could be annoyed that it worked, but understand why it did. But the second time? not so much.)
I think the wheels may be starting to fall off her performance, and I even wonder if her relatively strong first half hour may look differently in retrospect. I’m really liking my prediction from earlier today about how this will play to the public. She needed to show that she had some substance. She failed.
Did Palin just say that the Founding Fathers put a lot of flexibility in the office of the VP? Ahhh…the stupid…it hurts…
She lied about her cronyism. Hiring whoever would work with her regardless of party? She is George Bush in lipstick. Loyalty first.
Just to clarify, there is much to horrify me regarding Biden’s foreign policy views, but he at least appears knowledgeable. Palin looks (is) clueless. And you also get a sense of whys some anti-interventionists see Obama as the lesser of two evils here.
This is embarassing. My wife said about 20 minutes ago when Palin was being giggly that she was expected her to do a Tina Fey and use her fingers to simulate fireworks going off her head.
Yeah, DaveA, she really did. Actually Biden is getting a little better as this ordeal winds to a much-deserved close.
Palin saved her career by not coming off as a complete doofus, but she had no discernable effect on John McCain’s electoral chances, other than not completely sinking them.
The key moment of the debate for me, that changed the entire context of both performances: when Biden momentarily choked up when discussing single-parenthood. It came across as almost embarrasingly authentic and unexpected. What did Palin do in response? She rattled on obliviously as Robo-Mom, with her predigested answers and rehearsed
mannerisms. Whatever else about Biden, he at least seemed to establish some sort of emotional bridge in that one moment as an actual warm human being, whereas she just marched relentlessly on like some sort of pretty, preprogrammed PTA cyborg.