A real drag.
I will agree with BT that I am definitely disappointed that Palin was able to stand up at the podium and read her cards or recite her rehearsed lines for the camera without having a meltdown or have any of her limbs fall off.
This was a sort of referendum on Palin. Everyone sort of knows Biden and knows he's smart and can debate his ace off but Palin was a wild card, an unknown and she had set the bar very low with her interviews. While she did appear to have it together and didn't flake out, she failed miserably on everything else and that is why Americans who watched the debate and were polled following decided that Biden was the better performer.
This debate was a sort of continuation of the McCain/Obama debate. While watching, it appeared that the GOP team was constantly on the attack and had nothing but disdain for the DEM team. Like McCain with Obama, Palin offered up a slate of snark and sarcasm with a smile. I submit that she didn't even offer Biden the respect deserved of an elder, much less a Senator who has dedicated his life to service.
What I fear may have happened with Palin and those who viewed her was that they did see themselves in her and the majority of those didn't like what they saw. They saw a smart-alecky, little know-it-all who doesn't really know shit and will buck the rules and do anything other than to have to give a solid answer to a question including telling the moderator that she won't answer her questions.
For Biden's part, he did what he had to do as well. He attacked McCain and didn't make any headlines. Though Palin didn't, Biden was able to make it through the debate without telling lie upon lie and getting fact upon fact wrong.
For the most part, I felt (as I did with Obama) that Palin was pummeling him mercilessly but he wasn't punching back. I was especially aware of his seething disdain for her (which I shared) and his occasional sighs or exhales during Palin's lies.
What wound up happening though is that rather than Biden appearing to beat up on Palin or condescend to her, the opposite happened. Palin with her goofy Dan-Rather-esque "folksiness" complete with winks and grins and snide one-liners had all of her bullshit brought crashing down around her cute little puppy-dog ears when Biden reminded the country that he knows what they are going through because he knows what it is like to wonder if a child is going to live.
That moment was as real and respectable as anything I've even seen in regards to a politician.
Biden has never been my favorite. He was always running down Dean and he seemed to be a media hog to me for the most part. I've read up on him and he's a real person trying to do the right thing. I learned he is consistently ranked as one of the poorest senators and that is respectable to me.
Following the debate, I fully expected Palin to have won over the world with her non-answer answers. I found it utterly shocking that the insta-polls showed that Palin had done not nearly as well as Biden. She came off as likable to some, I'm sure. From where I sat, she seemed like a nice woman who in way over her head prior to the debate. Now, I no longer consider her a nice woman. She is simply the snarky, little beauty queen who got herself elected. I'm sure she could learn all she needs to know because those kinds of people usually can when their backs are against the wall but she is not qualified to be president ergo she is not qualified to be VP.
