Palin outshines Biden

[Guest 2smart4u]

Unless you're a committed far left ideologue, you have to recognize Sarah Palin for the outstanding display of poise, character and command presence she exibited during the VP debate.

Considering she's had 3 weeks to get up to speed to stand up against a 36 year Senator, she held her own, had an outstanding command of the issues and according to many did better than Biden.

I'm interested in hearing from Paul. I'd like to know if Paul still thinks of her as a "waitress" or if he will admit to underestimating her courage, her intelligence, strength and poise.

After her "gotcha" interviews with Charlie and Katie, there was enormous pressure on Palin to do well and with an estimated 90 million viewers, few people could have handled it.

My own belief is Sarah Palin is more qualified and more prepared to be President than Barack Obama. Her executive experience, her command presence, her poise under enormous pressure during the debate showed she is more than ready to step into the Oval Office is the need should arise.

Paul?

[Manscape]

Unless you're a committed far left ideologue, you have to recognize Sarah Palin for the outstanding display of poise, character and command presence she exibited during the VP debate.

Considering she's had 3 weeks to get up to speed to stand up against a 36 year Senator, she held her own, had an outstanding command of the issues and according to many did better than Biden.

I'm interested in hearing from Paul. I'd like to know if Paul still thinks of her as a "waitress" or if he will admit to underestimating her courage, her intelligence, strength and poise.

After her "gotcha" interviews with Charlie and Katie, there was enormous pressure on Palin to do well and with an estimated 90 million viewers, few people could have handled it.

My own belief is Sarah Palin is more qualified and more prepared to be President than Barack Obama. Her executive experience, her command presence, her poise under enormous pressure during the debate showed she is more than ready to step into the Oval Office is the need should arise.

Paul?

Tooby?.....go clean up your mess.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...ge_too_far.html

October 03, 2008

Sarah Palin: A Bridge Too Far

By Bob Beckel

Have we reached the point of mediocrity in this country that Sarah Palin's debate performance was actually acceptable to her supporters (fortunately, Independents in early polls do not share that view) because she didn't fall on her face, as many conservatives feared? That's your standard? No wonder there are still some of you who still think George Bush, the very definition of mediocrity, is a good president.

In a word, Palin's debate performance was awful. She couldn't win a high school student council election with those homespun platitudes, repetitive inane comments about the war, and most strikingly her refusal to answer not a few but EVERY question put to her that demanded a direct answer.

Every economic question received the tired tax-and-spend slogans Republicans have bellowed for years.

Foreign policy: "You were wrong on the surge." -- That was it. Not one single idea of her own (which is understandable, since she has none). What would you do different in bad economic times like this? "Cut more taxes in Walissa." The great foreign policy team around McCain-Palin includes Rudy Giuliani, who has about as much foreign policy experience as Madonna, and who history will record mishandled 9/11 in tragic ways.

Palin's next foreign policy guru? Mitt Romney. -- The same stiff-haired flip-flopper whose entire foreign policy experience was pedaling his bike trying to convert Mormons in France. Or Henry Kissinger, who ran illegal wars in Laos and Cambodia to get Richard Nixon re-elected and lied when he told Americans before the 1972 election that, "Peace is at hand" in Vietnam. I suppose if your worldview is seeing Russia from an island in Alaska, and having a border with our threatening neighbor, Canada, you love these guys.

The Economic Crisis: When asked about the current economic crisis, she says nothing because she knows nothing. But she sure talked about her family breakfast table a lot. That's the table the citizens of Alaska paid per diem for her to sit at for over 300 days as governor. She says electing her and McCain is electing two mavericks who will cut spending, including earmarks. Palin has asked for, and gotten, $1 million every day in pork for Alaska since she's been governor.

Palin says she and McCain will appoint the most qualified people to government despite party labels. Sort of like your second grade friend you put in charge of Alaska's agriculture because "she loved cows as a little girl," Sarah?

A word for Moderator Gwen Ifill: The right intimidated you. You never forced Palin to answer a question directly and not duck; you bent over backward to take her sophomoric answers seriously; and frankly you treated her with girlie gloves.

But that's not the point. Even with your softball questions she couldn't get past "aw shucks," "hockey moms" and "Wasilla values" (which get weirder and weirder).

If the stakes weren't so high, this obviously nice and fairly articulate person can probably still govern the state of Alaska, where frankly it doesn't much matter. But vice president of the United States? That is a bridge not only too far, but the real bridge to nowhere.

[Guest Guest]

Unless you're a committed far left ideologue, you have to recognize Sarah Palin for the outstanding display of poise, character and command presence she exibited during the VP debate.

Considering she's had 3 weeks to get up to speed to stand up against a 36 year Senator, she held her own, had an outstanding command of the issues and according to many did better than Biden.

I'm interested in hearing from Paul. I'd like to know if Paul still thinks of her as a "waitress" or if he will admit to underestimating her courage, her intelligence, strength and poise.

After her "gotcha" interviews with Charlie and Katie, there was enormous pressure on Palin to do well and with an estimated 90 million viewers, few people could have handled it.

My own belief is Sarah Palin is more qualified and more prepared to be President than Barack Obama. Her executive experience, her command presence, her poise under enormous pressure during the debate showed she is more than ready to step into the Oval Office is the need should arise.

Paul?

Really??? You think Palin won? Maybe we saw a different debate. Look the bar was set really low on her, even if you left or right you must agree with that. Biden wasn’t charismatic as her, but I don’t think he can wink as good as she did to the camera. The moment of a true for a great leader is when faced with a hard gotcha question and answer it straight on; example when asked about gay marriage, that a hard question to answer. He answered it with no back peddling, you might or might not like his responds but he answer straight. Palin was like hmmm, well and sorry if I feel this way, not very VP like. I hope if I talk to a VP about an important topic there responds isn’t “I’m going to answer the question in my own way”.

[Guest Paul]

Unless you're a committed far left ideologue, you have to recognize Sarah Palin for the outstanding display of poise, character and command presence she exibited during the VP debate.

Considering she's had 3 weeks to get up to speed to stand up against a 36 year Senator, she held her own, had an outstanding command of the issues and according to many did better than Biden.

I'm interested in hearing from Paul. I'd like to know if Paul still thinks of her as a "waitress" or if he will admit to underestimating her courage, her intelligence, strength and poise.

After her "gotcha" interviews with Charlie and Katie, there was enormous pressure on Palin to do well and with an estimated 90 million viewers, few people could have handled it.

My own belief is Sarah Palin is more qualified and more prepared to be President than Barack Obama. Her executive experience, her command presence, her poise under enormous pressure during the debate showed she is more than ready to step into the Oval Office is the need should arise.

Paul?

Fellow American, I'm glad you're still with this discussion. I'm disappointed that you completely dropped out of the Reagan discussion, especially since you initiated it. Feel free to join me back there if you feel you have something substantive to add to the discussion. I'm also sorry that you continue to insist that everyone who doesn't agree with you is a far left ideologue. Had you read the polls from last evening's debate, you might have realized that the majority of Americans thought Biden won the debate.

Regarding Sarah Palin:

1. She had no command of issues whatsoever, as proved by the fact that her handlers chained her to carefully rehearsed talking points. That's why they insisted on a different format for the VP debate: they didn't want her to have to go into anything in any detail. I've been a trial lawyer for thirty years, and a debater going back to high school. I'll tell you exactly what Palin's handlers did. They gave her an hour or so of scripted material to make sure she could fill 45 minutes (her half of 90). They instructed her that if any question from Ifill or any comments from Biden opened issues that weren't covered by her talking points, she was to say she disagreed and quickly change the subject. That is exactly what she did. She did absolutely nothing last evening that a college student couldn't have been trained to do in a similar amount of time. I'll give her credit for being able to do it in front of 90 million people while under tremendous pressure, but that's it. Everything else just confirmed the well-established fact that she's completely unqualified for the job.

2. The proof of McCain's own lack of trust in her is that his campaign won't let her do any more interviews. Why isn't she on "Meet the Press?" McCain is. All the Republican Senatorial candidates are. I answered your question. Now if you will be so kind, please answer mine: why isn't she giving interviews like every other candidate does?

3. You can't just keep making up the idea that every real interview that exposes her lack of knowledge is a "gotcha" interview. Every other candidate, Democrat and Republican, does those interviews regularly, without making fools of themselves. She can't do it. That is a proven fact.

4. I don't call winking at the audience, sophomoric attacks and refusals to answer serious questions "command presence." One of the reasons I mentioned being a high school debater years ago is that that's what she reminded me of. Only she would have lost a high school debate because if we didn't respond directly to questions asked or to the other side's arguments, we forfeited that argument.

5. And in fact, she did lose the debate where it matters: with the American people and particularly with independents. That's not my spin. Those are the numbers. She thought she could get by with style alone. The American people aren't buying it this time. They're demanding substance, and she doesn't have any.

No doubt many on your side of the aisle were relieved that Palin didn't completely fall apart on stage. The very fact that that's your standard should tell you something. However, the American people didn't buy the cutesy routine. She lost the debate by a significant margin according to all three major polls (CNN, CBS I think and Fox, the last of which had it 69-31 for Biden).

6. She did not display much character when Joe Biden choked up over his young wife and daughter who were tragically killed just as he was entering public life. Instead of showing a moment of empathy, the barracuda plowed directly back into attack mode. That was a colossal misread, and an example of poor judgment. It did not sit well with the American people. This raises a new question about her: whether she really is the local gal helping out at the hockey rink or the cutthroat hockey mom cracking the other players' sticks. The whole point of aw-shucks folksiness is that it's considered genuine. For her not to show any empathy to Biden at that moment undermined her claim to being just one of us.

In the end, she was not allowed to think on her feet and deliberately stayed confined completely within her prepared one-liners and talking points. She did absolutely nothing to convince any objective observer that she is qualified to be president. She offered no defense of her running mate beyond a talking point, contradicted him on at least one major point and was factually wrong in a dozen or so of her statements.

There is one thing she did do. One defense being offered for her is that she'll have advisers to help her along in the increasingly unlikely even that she and McCain win. In her case, that's part of the problem. In parroting the neocon argument for expanding the VP's power into the legislative branch, she demonstrated that she will be Charlie McCarthy to the same people who have been ruining the country for the past eight years.

It's also fascinating that the prosaic language in her closing statement was plagiarized from a 1961 address by Ronald Reagan. She did not attribute the source, which takes away any hope of raising the argument about the problem Biden ran into in 1988. More important, the content of "her" remarks had to do with the preservation of American freedom. Reagan was warning that American freedom was being threatened --- by adoption of the Medicare program. Overlooked in all of this is how radical Palin is, and how completely in the pockets of the neocons who have all but destroyed this country in the past eight years. If you compared what George W. Bush said in 2000 to what Sarah Palin said last evening, you would scarcely see any difference. It's the same radical right wing ideology that got us into this mess. That is not the change the American people want.

I suggest you watch Saturday Night Live tomorrow evening. Tina Fay is going to skewer Palin.

[Guest *Autonomous*]

Torie Clarke (worked with McCain in Arizona and with Bush's DoD:

"I'm so surprised at what we are talking about before and after the debate. Before the debate the speculation was all on Sarah Palin, how well can she do, can she answer the tough questions? Nobody was paying attention to Joe Biden. I think Joe Biden had his best night tonight. He came with one mission, and that was to go after John McCain, and he did it, backed up by facts. I think he did a better job tonight of tying McCain to the Bush administration than Obama did last week."

Matthew Dowd (worked with Bush's White House):

"I think, you know, I agree with her on this. I think Sarah Palin did reasonably well. The death spiral she has been on for the last week, she survived. She's lived another day. She did well. But I think, when the polls come out in the next two, three days, Joe Biden won this debate."

I guess these Republicans are loony left now?

The fact is, everyone had incredibly low expectations of Palin, so being able to form a coherent sentence would have been acceptable. Polls are showing that Palin did better than expected but that Biden won:

http://www.kansascity.com/445/story/825655.html

[WilliamK]

Unless you're a committed far left ideologue, you have to recognize Sarah Palin for the outstanding display of poise, character and command presence she exibited during the VP debate.

Considering she's had 3 weeks to get up to speed to stand up against a 36 year Senator, she held her own, had an outstanding command of the issues and according to many did better than Biden.

3 weeks? She's had the entirety of her career and her education to learn, just like all the other candidates have had. That she has had to cram in the last few weeks to be able to debate competently, shows just how far removed all of her oft-touted "executive experience" is from the kinds of skills and knowledge that are needed for the presidency. She has surely learned a great many things in her life and career, but it is painfully obvious that they are not the kinds of things that would make her competent for a VP debate, much less for the job itself. Barack Obama has spent about as much time in politics as she has, but he hasn't had to cram and be coached like she has. That's because his experience, his education, and very likely even his personal interests, are far more relevant to the job he's applying for.

Palin supporters love to use the word "executive" over and over, to try to convince themselves and others that she's a better choice for VP. The problem is that relevance can stand without "executive". But "executive" loses all value without relevance.

The reality is that as far as presidential-quality experience goes, Sarah Palin is a first-year student among seasoned professionals. Yes, that includes Obama. Her inexperience showed badly in her two interviews. And it was still visible in the debate, though the preparatory effort did yield considerable improvement.

"3 weeks to get up to speed" is not a valid defense, 2smart. It's an inadvertent admission that she's not ready for the job.

I'm interested in hearing from Paul. I'd like to know if Paul still thinks of her as a "waitress" or if he will admit to underestimating her courage, her intelligence, strength and poise.

After her "gotcha" interviews with Charlie and Katie, there was enormous pressure on Palin to do well and with an estimated 90 million viewers, few people could have handled it.

She did reasonably well, though that is due in no small part to getting away with evading some of the questions by glossing over, or simply ignoring them, then talking about something else. She returned to "energy" (which for her, seems to be a synonym for "oil") over and over, as a sort of safe haven whenever the topic turned to something that was awkward for her. Luckily for her, Gwen Ifill let her get away with it.

Charlie and Katie pressed her to actually address the questions that were asked. The could not have been any "gotcha" in those interviews if not for the fact that Sarah Palin sometimes just had no idea what the hell she was talking about, and not enough sense to quit talking.

Still, she managed to do fairy well overall. A little bit of weaving from time to time, but she never drove completely off into the ditch.

My own belief is Sarah Palin is more qualified and more prepared to be President than Barack Obama.

Of course it is. I doubt you would believe any different if she had frozen up with stage fright and puked on her shoes. She's a Republican, and a Christian, and once you've seen that, it colors everything else you see. Your political beliefs are as faith-based as your religious beliefs.

[Guest Guest]

Unless you're a committed far left ideologue, you have to recognize Sarah Palin for the outstanding display of poise, character and command presence she exibited during the VP debate.

Considering she's had 3 weeks to get up to speed to stand up against a 36 year Senator, she held her own, had an outstanding command of the issues and according to many did better than Biden.

I'm interested in hearing from Paul. I'd like to know if Paul still thinks of her as a "waitress" or if he will admit to underestimating her courage, her intelligence, strength and poise.

After her "gotcha" interviews with Charlie and Katie, there was enormous pressure on Palin to do well and with an estimated 90 million viewers, few people could have handled it.

My own belief is Sarah Palin is more qualified and more prepared to be President than Barack Obama. Her executive experience, her command presence, her poise under enormous pressure during the debate showed she is more than ready to step into the Oval Office is the need should arise.

Paul?

Dear Stupid,

She was told what to say. That's why she spent three days in Arizona being prepped. She was also told not to say anything she hadn't been prepped for. That's why she refused to answer a lot of the questions.

If she had been pressed to answer the questions, it would have looked exactly like the Gibson and Couric interviews. She didn't suddenly get learn about all the issues she has spent her whole life ignoring. Her handlers just found a way to cover her ignorance.

Tell you what. You'll be feeling bad after the election, so I'll make it up to you. Come with me and I'll introduce you to the real Santa Claus. I know a mall where he comes every year.

Idiot.

[Guest Keith]

Unless you're a committed far left ideologue, you have to recognize Sarah Palin for the outstanding display of poise, character and command presence she exibited during the VP debate.

Considering she's had 3 weeks to get up to speed to stand up against a 36 year Senator, she held her own, had an outstanding command of the issues and according to many did better than Biden.

I'm interested in hearing from Paul. I'd like to know if Paul still thinks of her as a "waitress" or if he will admit to underestimating her courage, her intelligence, strength and poise.

After her "gotcha" interviews with Charlie and Katie, there was enormous pressure on Palin to do well and with an estimated 90 million viewers, few people could have handled it.

My own belief is Sarah Palin is more qualified and more prepared to be President than Barack Obama. Her executive experience, her command presence, her poise under enormous pressure during the debate showed she is more than ready to step into the Oval Office is the need should arise.

Paul?

Gotcha interviews? By your logic any asked of her is a gotch interview. Your an idiot!

[Guest Guest]

Dear Stupid,

She was told what to say. That's why she spent three days in Arizona being prepped. She was also told not to say anything she hadn't been prepped for. That's why she refused to answer a lot of the questions.

If she had been pressed to answer the questions, it would have looked exactly like the Gibson and Couric interviews. She didn't suddenly get learn about all the issues she has spent her whole life ignoring. Her handlers just found a way to cover her ignorance.

Tell you what. You'll be feeling bad after the election, so I'll make it up to you. Come with me and I'll introduce you to the real Santa Claus. I know a mall where he comes every year.

Idiot.

"She didn't suddenly get "learn"? That's no typo, you're the idiot.

[Manscape]

Wow Tooby (2smart4u indeed).........I was looking to continue raking you over the coals.........but you're an absolute DEADENDER BASKETCASE.......and I feel pity for the incessant pummelings you receive.......so instead of posting ANOTHER "Sarah Palin is a gimmick" essay by an established American journalist, I've decided to give you a break.........................

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....................JUST FOOLING, YOU BUSH CULT SUPPORTING MALIGNANCY!!!!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04herbert.html

Op-Ed Columnist

Palin’s Alternate Universe

By BOB HERBERT

Published: October 3, 2008

Sarah Palin is the perfect exclamation point to the Bush years.

We’ve lived through nearly two terms of an administration that believed it could create its own reality:

“Deficits don’t matter.” “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.” “Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere.”

Now comes Ms. Palin, a smiling, bubbly vice-presidential candidate who travels in an alternate language universe. For Ms. Palin, such things as context, syntax and the proximity of answers to questions have no meaning.

In her closing remarks at the vice-presidential debate Thursday night, Ms. Palin referred earnestly, if loosely, to a quote from Ronald Reagan. He 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.”

What Ms. Palin didn’t say was that the menace to freedom that Reagan was talking about was Medicare. As the historian Robert Dallek has pointed out, Reagan “saw Medicare as the advance wave of socialism, which would ‘invade every area of freedom in this country.’ ”

Does Ms. Palin agree with that Looney Tunes notion? Or was this just another case of the aw-shucks, darn-right, I’m-just-a-hockey-mom governor of Alaska mouthing something completely devoid of meaning?

Here’s Ms. Palin during the debate: “Say it ain’t so, Joe! There you go pointing backwards again ... Now, doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I’m glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?”

If Governor Palin didn’t like a question, or didn’t know the answer, she responded as though some other question had been asked. She made no bones about this, saying early in the debate: “I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear.”

The problem with Ms. Palin’s candidacy is that John McCain might actually win this election, and then if something terrible happened, the country could be left with little more than an exclamation point as president.

After Ms. Palin had woven one of her particularly impenetrable linguistic webs, Joe Biden turned to the debate’s moderator, Gwen Ifill, and said: “Gwen, I don’t know where to start.”

Of course he didn’t know where to start because Ms. Palin’s words don’t mean anything. She’s all punctuation.

This is such a serious moment in American history that it’s hard to believe that someone with Ms. Palin’s limited skills could possibly be playing a leadership role. On the day before the debate, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, made an urgent appeal for more troops, saying the additional “boots on the ground,” as well as more helicopters and other vital equipment, were “needed as quickly as possible.”

The morning after the debate, the Labor Department announced that the employment situation in the U.S. had deteriorated even more than experts had expected. The nation lost nearly 160,000 jobs in September, more than double the monthly losses in July and August.

Conditions are probably worse than even those numbers indicate because the government’s statistics do not yet reflect the response of employers to the credit crisis that has taken such a hold in the last few weeks.

Where is the evidence that Governor Palin even understands these complex and enormously challenging problems? During the debate she twice referred to General McKiernan as “McClellan.” Neither Ms. Ifill nor Senator Biden corrected her.

But after Senator Biden suggested that John McCain’s answer to the nation’s energy problems was to “drill, drill, drill,” Ms. Palin promptly pointed out, as if scoring a point, that “the chant is ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ ”

How’s that for perspective? The credit markets are frozen. Our top general in Afghanistan is dialing 911. Americans are losing jobs by the scores of thousands. And Sarah Palin is making sure we know that the chant is “drill, baby, drill!” not “drill, drill, drill.”

John McCain has spent most of his adult life speaking of his love for his country. Maybe he sees something in Sarah Palin that most Americans do not. Maybe he is aware of qualities that lead him to believe she’d be as steady as Franklin Roosevelt in guiding the U.S. through a prolonged economic downturn. Maybe she’d be as wise and prudent in a national emergency as John Kennedy was during the Cuban missile crisis.

Maybe Senator McCain has reason to believe that it would not be the most colossal of errors to put Ms. Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency.

He’s got just four weeks to share that insight with the rest of us.

[Guest Guest]

Gotcha interviews? By your logic any asked of her is a gotch interview. Your an idiot!

"Your" an idiot? It's "you're" an idiot. Idiot.

[Guest Keith]

"Your" an idiot? It's "you're" an idiot. Idiot.

You're right, Im sorry. I guess I went "Palin" for a second there.

[WilliamK]

You're right, Im sorry. I guess I went "Palin" for a second there.

Nah, that would be "nucular", don't cha know.

[Guest Guest]

Fellow American, I'm glad you're still with this discussion. I'm disappointed that you completely dropped out of the Reagan discussion, especially since you initiated it. Feel free to join me back there if you feel you have something substantive to add to the discussion. I'm also sorry that you continue to insist that everyone who doesn't agree with you is a far left ideologue. Had you read the polls from last evening's debate, you might have realized that the majority of Americans thought Biden won the debate.

Regarding Sarah Palin:

1. She had no command of issues whatsoever, as proved by the fact that her handlers chained her to carefully rehearsed talking points. That's why they insisted on a different format for the VP debate: they didn't want her to have to go into anything in any detail. I've been a trial lawyer for thirty years, and a debater going back to high school. I'll tell you exactly what Palin's handlers did. They gave her an hour or so of scripted material to make sure she could fill 45 minutes (her half of 90). They instructed her that if any question from Ifill or any comments from Biden opened issues that weren't covered by her talking points, she was to say she disagreed and quickly change the subject. That is exactly what she did. She did absolutely nothing last evening that a college student couldn't have been trained to do in a similar amount of time. I'll give her credit for being able to do it in front of 90 million people while under tremendous pressure, but that's it. Everything else just confirmed the well-established fact that she's completely unqualified for the job.

2. The proof of McCain's own lack of trust in her is that his campaign won't let her do any more interviews. Why isn't she on "Meet the Press?" McCain is. All the Republican Senatorial candidates are. I answered your question. Now if you will be so kind, please answer mine: why isn't she giving interviews like every other candidate does?

3. You can't just keep making up the idea that every real interview that exposes her lack of knowledge is a "gotcha" interview. Every other candidate, Democrat and Republican, does those interviews regularly, without making fools of themselves. She can't do it. That is a proven fact.

4. I don't call winking at the audience, sophomoric attacks and refusals to answer serious questions "command presence." One of the reasons I mentioned being a high school debater years ago is that that's what she reminded me of. Only she would have lost a high school debate because if we didn't respond directly to questions asked or to the other side's arguments, we forfeited that argument.

5. And in fact, she did lose the debate where it matters: with the American people and particularly with independents. That's not my spin. Those are the numbers. She thought she could get by with style alone. The American people aren't buying it this time. They're demanding substance, and she doesn't have any.

No doubt many on your side of the aisle were relieved that Palin didn't completely fall apart on stage. The very fact that that's your standard should tell you something. However, the American people didn't buy the cutesy routine. She lost the debate by a significant margin according to all three major polls (CNN, CBS I think and Fox, the last of which had it 69-31 for Biden).

6. She did not display much character when Joe Biden choked up over his young wife and daughter who were tragically killed just as he was entering public life. Instead of showing a moment of empathy, the barracuda plowed directly back into attack mode. That was a colossal misread, and an example of poor judgment. It did not sit well with the American people. This raises a new question about her: whether she really is the local gal helping out at the hockey rink or the cutthroat hockey mom cracking the other players' sticks. The whole point of aw-shucks folksiness is that it's considered genuine. For her not to show any empathy to Biden at that moment undermined her claim to being just one of us.

In the end, she was not allowed to think on her feet and deliberately stayed confined completely within her prepared one-liners and talking points. She did absolutely nothing to convince any objective observer that she is qualified to be president. She offered no defense of her running mate beyond a talking point, contradicted him on at least one major point and was factually wrong in a dozen or so of her statements.

There is one thing she did do. One defense being offered for her is that she'll have advisers to help her along in the increasingly unlikely even that she and McCain win. In her case, that's part of the problem. In parroting the neocon argument for expanding the VP's power into the legislative branch, she demonstrated that she will be Charlie McCarthy to the same people who have been ruining the country for the past eight years.

It's also fascinating that the prosaic language in her closing statement was plagiarized from a 1961 address by Ronald Reagan. She did not attribute the source, which takes away any hope of raising the argument about the problem Biden ran into in 1988. More important, the content of "her" remarks had to do with the preservation of American freedom. Reagan was warning that American freedom was being threatened --- by adoption of the Medicare program. Overlooked in all of this is how radical Palin is, and how completely in the pockets of the neocons who have all but destroyed this country in the past eight years. If you compared what George W. Bush said in 2000 to what Sarah Palin said last evening, you would scarcely see any difference. It's the same radical right wing ideology that got us into this mess. That is not the change the American people want.

I suggest you watch Saturday Night Live tomorrow evening. Tina Fay is going to skewer Palin.

We won't here much about the plagiarism issue because Biden didn't just do it in 1988, he's been doing it since law school. And it's one thing to paraphrase someone. It's completely different to not only use the words and change them to fit your own situation. He even lifted the gestures.

[Guest Guest]

You're right, Im sorry. I guess I went "Palin" for a second there.

No, you're just an idiot.

[Guest Guest]

Unless you're a committed far left ideologue, you have to recognize Sarah Palin for the outstanding display of poise, character and command presence she exibited during the VP debate.

Only a far right idiot who should be commited could make that statement and hope to be taken seriously.

[Guest wildbill]

Tooby?.....go clean up your mess.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...ge_too_far.html

October 03, 2008

Sarah Palin: A Bridge Too Far

By Bob Beckel

Have we reached the point of mediocrity in this country that Sarah Palin's debate performance was actually acceptable to her supporters (fortunately, Independents in early polls do not share that view) because she didn't fall on her face, as many conservatives feared? That's your standard? No wonder there are still some of you who still think George Bush, the very definition of mediocrity, is a good president.

In a word, Palin's debate performance was awful. She couldn't win a high school student council election with those homespun platitudes, repetitive inane comments about the war, and most strikingly her refusal to answer not a few but EVERY question put to her that demanded a direct answer.

Every economic question received the tired tax-and-spend slogans Republicans have bellowed for years.

Foreign policy: "You were wrong on the surge." -- That was it. Not one single idea of her own (which is understandable, since she has none). What would you do different in bad economic times like this? "Cut more taxes in Walissa." The great foreign policy team around McCain-Palin includes Rudy Giuliani, who has about as much foreign policy experience as Madonna, and who history will record mishandled 9/11 in tragic ways.

Palin's next foreign policy guru? Mitt Romney. -- The same stiff-haired flip-flopper whose entire foreign policy experience was pedaling his bike trying to convert Mormons in France. Or Henry Kissinger, who ran illegal wars in Laos and Cambodia to get Richard Nixon re-elected and lied when he told Americans before the 1972 election that, "Peace is at hand" in Vietnam. I suppose if your worldview is seeing Russia from an island in Alaska, and having a border with our threatening neighbor, Canada, you love these guys.

The Economic Crisis: When asked about the current economic crisis, she says nothing because she knows nothing. But she sure talked about her family breakfast table a lot. That's the table the citizens of Alaska paid per diem for her to sit at for over 300 days as governor. She says electing her and McCain is electing two mavericks who will cut spending, including earmarks. Palin has asked for, and gotten, $1 million every day in pork for Alaska since she's been governor.

Palin says she and McCain will appoint the most qualified people to government despite party labels. Sort of like your second grade friend you put in charge of Alaska's agriculture because "she loved cows as a little girl," Sarah?

A word for Moderator Gwen Ifill: The right intimidated you. You never forced Palin to answer a question directly and not duck; you bent over backward to take her sophomoric answers seriously; and frankly you treated her with girlie gloves.

But that's not the point. Even with your softball questions she couldn't get past "aw shucks," "hockey moms" and "Wasilla values" (which get weirder and weirder).

If the stakes weren't so high, this obviously nice and fairly articulate person can probably still govern the state of Alaska, where frankly it doesn't much matter. But vice president of the United States? That is a bridge not only too far, but the real bridge to nowhere.

What a tangled web the Republicans have weaved. I feel it will be 1972 all over again , A full circle landslide for Obama 60% to 34% with 6% going to Nader

Google Robertbone.com Z "I feel it my Bones bones, You ache to know my name. Read the entire web site for an insight into Jester 2's mind.