The Biden/Palen Debate - My Take

(warning: I like long, run-on sentences.)

I had already decided that my Thursday night, Oct. 2nd 2008 entertainment would be to sit down on my 26 year old sofa in the family room and watch the debate while chapping dinner (Rosh Hashana left-over chicken) on paper plates on the coffee table. And what a great night it was.

In my opinion, Governor Palin did better than before (she must have practiced and rehearsed forever), but her inexperience and fear of venturing out from behind her prepared talking points showed, while Senator Biden's many years of political experience showed too, as well as his ease of speaking extemporaneously, culling facts--albeit some wrong ones, notably about Hezbollah being kicked out of Lebanon (they weren't) and Palestinian elections in the West Bank (it was Gaza), as Daled Amos correctly points out--from memory, in sharp contrast to Palin's constantly looking down at her notes while he was speaking, and towing the party line while she was speaking, unrelated to the issues brought up in the debate.

I think Palin's constant looking down, rather than making eye contact with Senator Biden while he was speaking, and her perpetual frozen smile were inappropriate and only served to hurt her.

She also avoided answering Sen. Biden's questions on McCain's support of deregulation of Wall Street in the past, and instead continued with the points she rehearsed, nor did she respond to Biden's stating that average health care costs $12,000 and that McCain's proposal of a $5,000 credit still leaves thousands unpaid (by the way, my family's health care with the coverage we have now would cost upwards of $15,000 annually.)

I would have liked to hear some original thought from Palin, such as perhaps--that John McCain was for deregulation in the past because he stands for a free-market economy which self-regulates, but that economic times are very precarious now and the situation 'on the ground,' as it were, calls for drastic changes to promote bank solvency and liquidity in order to promote lending flow and prevent a major 1929-like depression--or something akin to that.

Some original thought. There was none. She time and time again reverted back to her "tried and true" points, but it was repetitious (if I hear the term 'maverick' again I'm going to puke) and showed her to be afraid of tackling the issues, my guess is from lack of knowledge. She was unprepared to venture out into 'unchartered territory,' which was anything that was not in her prepared notes.

So now I see a real dilemma: Obama is all rhetoric with untrustworthy affiliations, a weak position on terrorism, and a nebulous stance on Israel. McCain is a laissez-faire Republican whose Bush-like policies will put our economy in the doghouse and who is totally out of touch with anyone earning under a quarter-of-a-million dollars a year.

There is nobody to vote for on November 4th. I think I need some more left-over chicken. . .

Comments

Batya said…
It's a good thing you didn't watch it on a full stomach!
10:50 AM
Norma said…
They can't look at prepared notes since they aren't allowed any. They can only make notes of what the other is saying. I thought she did a wonderful job. His recitation of statistics, many of which later were proved wrong, gave me brain freeze. I thought she looked at him a lot, and also at the camera.
6:26 PM
Lady-Light said…
muse: You betcha! (btw, I actually finally submitted an article to the KCC. Better late than never, I say...)

norma: Ok, no prepared notes-my error; she kept looking down, so perhaps she was taking notes. Truth be told, they both erred on various issues, statistical and otherwise, as pointed out by the fact-checking pundits afterwards (ABC, NPR, etc.)

I don't think Biden had a monopoly on errors, and Palin definitely looked straight at the camera often, and did look at her opponent, but not as often.

I think it jelled for me when I saw Meet The Press this morning: Tom Brokaw said something to the effect that Palin had her own agenda, and she was going to go down that track and not answer any questions if they were not on her list.

Nice, but it was supposed to be a 'debate,' where the participants are supposed to present their evidence and rebut their opponents' arguments.

Most of the time, that didn't happen.
8:54 PM
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