Palin managed to relocate the self-respect that she fumbled away her when CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric managed to tie Palin’s brains into knots with laughable and pathetic ease. But she failed to harvest any new voters from Independents and conservative Democrats who may have briefly been enthralled by her appearance at the Republican convention last month. When the undecided electorate waded through Palin’s frenetic, glassy-eyed performance, they found little to grasp. Biden, in stark contrast to Palin’s fake folksiness, answered all questions eloquently and fluidly, rattling off facts and knowledge of issues with the calm, dignified air of a professor behind a lectern. Not exciting, perhaps, but very impressive nevertheless. From a pure intellectual and knowledge standpoint, the debate wasn’t even close. In fact, Biden perhaps felt a bit insulted having to share the stage with such a vacuous political neophyte. –terry shropshire
Dear Sawah,
Wuved your wootine on the debate show with Joe. You are soo engaging and phwotwogenic. I wuved how you wooked diwectly into the camewa and recited your fowksy twuisms. Sawah, yow’re a pistwol. –Wuv ya, Tweety Bird
My feathered friend aside, I don’t know how anyone could miss the lack of a single concrete thought or idea from Gov. Sarah Palin. Oh, she performed well, which is to say she did exactly what she was coached to do. But all that smiling, winking and mangling of the English language amplified the fact that this is not a woman who is capable of leading the country. This performance — and make no mistake about it, it was a performance — was the Republican convention redux. Sen. Joe Biden performed masterfully as he did the only thing he could do — debate John McCain in absentia. I fervently hope that the McCain-Palin ticket will enjoy the inaugural festivities — McCain from one of the dozen or so houses he doesn’t know he has, and Palin from the island in Alaska from which she can “see Russia.” And that’s all folks. –p.d.lee
Vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin did what she had to do. That is clear. Her public image, after a less-than-stellar few days and interviews that left many scratching their heads and questioning not only her ability to potentially lead the country, but whether or not Republican presidential nominee John McCain had made a disastrous mistake in picking the Alaska governor for his running mate. In the debate versus Joe Biden, she was charming, confident, and at times, disarmingly strategic in her counterattacks to Biden’s comments. But, ultimately, Biden proved to be her superior in his knowledge of foreign policy, he trumped her every attempt at attacking Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, and he was able to deconstruct every attempt made by Palin to paint McCain as the true agent for change in this election. Palin may have silenced some of her detractors, but Biden emerged victorious. –todd williams
