I don't love the way Sarah Palin talks. She was talking too fast and often got ahead of herself, leading to some extremely tortured syntax. I don't think she is a dumb woman and I think her record in Alaska shows she is a skilled politician and can work the process. That being said, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that she has not been engaged in national and international issues long enough to have a fully-developed worldview. She is a quick study and I was surprised at some of the details she came up with, but we have to be realistic. She is absorbing a lot, but that is not the same as having been focused on these issues long enough to have a coherent, well thought-out point of view. In this respect, I do wish that she had been Governor for a bit longer. So, at its core, you have to take it on faith that she will bring the same skills to the issues of the country as a whole that she brought to Alaska. That's not a terribly compelling argument, but I think this image that she is some kind of blithering idiot is ridiculous. She's also a weird contrast with Obama. She actually has a record of governing but little engagement with national issues. Obama has no record of governing, but he is clearly very intelligent and has been engaged with national issues. They both have a big hole in their arguments.
On the other hand, I am absolutely dumbfounded as to how Joe Biden continues to get such a free pass from the media. As I said below, he is very smooth and articulate and it is pleasing to listen to, especially when compared with the halting speech pattern from Palin.
But, my GOD, the guy just makes things up out of whole cloth and nobody says a word.
There was the usual political bloviating, like his reference to the people at Katie's restaurant in Wilmington, where the regular folk can be found. Sadly, Katie's has, apparently been closed for almost two decades. I don't begrudge him the bullshit populism, but, Joe, come on, at least reference something that existed some time recently.
That's just bad political style. His policy comments were more bizarre and more fabricated.
For example, his comment that we spend more in a month in Iraq than we have spent in Afghanistan in seven years. My ears perked up when I heard this because it sounds incredibly damning, even taking into account that Afghanistan is a more international conflict. The problem is, it is totally untrue. In fact, he is off by a couple of orders of magnitude. Now, seriously, can you imagine the derision that Palin would have had rained down on her for saying such a thing. How can the press not call him on such an outright falsehood?
And for a guy who is a 36 year Senator and a lawyer, he sure needs to re-read the Constitution. Virtually everything he asserted last night about what the Constitution says about the office of the VP is wrong. And his point, which was to bash the Cheney's interpretation of the role of the VP, didn't even make sense.
But the absolute jaw-dropper was his comment about how the U.S. and France chased Hezbollah out of Lebanon. And that Obama, who had been a Senator for about three days when this happened, had called for sending NATO troops in to fill the power vacuum. Can somebody tell me in what version of reality any of this actually happened?? It will certainly come as news to Hezbollah's leaders. His defenders are saying that he meant Syria, but the problem is that it still doesn't make any of this true. And are we now meant to understand that the candidates who feel we are overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan were in favor of opening up another conflict in the Middle East by sending in NATO (which, we all know, means US) troops? Especially from Obama, who couldn't even bother to call his Senate subcommittee, which has oversight over NATO, into session once in his less than one term as Senator?
How does he get away with this? I was listening to the debate in the kitchen when he shoveled this out and I actually ran into the living room to make sure I was still watching the actual debate.
Will the media call him on this? Nope. In fact, I have been reading about Biden's "mastery of the facts" all day.
Please.
6 comments:
Great wrap, Misanthrope - I find myself preferring to hear these debates on radio rather than watching them, so I'm not sidtracted with all the phicalness of it all.
Note: UK Times calls Palin looking like "a crippled moose"! Check this:
"While Biden’s performance was largely an exercise in self-restraint, Palin’s was at once excruciating and possibly brilliant. During one question, she could be seen wiping sweat from between her palms. At other times she winked while making a cheesy clicking noise. At no point did she ever seem comfortable with the English language, never mind the questions at hand. On several occasions she seemed to respond to the moderator by simply stringing a number of memorised phrases together, in no particular order, while looking for all the world like a crippled moose caught in the headlamps of rapidly advancing snowmobile."
um, that should've been 'physicality"
Well done... but the Biden moment that woke me up, and actually had my dad so flustered on the golf course today that he jacked two shots in row into the woods after he and I talked about it was, "and not only are we going to created legislation that allows for these mortgages interest rates to be lowered, we're going to reduce the PRINCIPLE on them as well..."
What. The. Fuck?!!!
So I guess that once these morons are sworn in I can expect BO/JB to lower the price I paid for my house last year. "Oh no Mr. Alva you actually PAY your mortgage payments, we're only going to do this for people that don't...".
We're all fucking doomed...
Dfactor -
I agree that listening on radio is a fascinating way to experience the debates. And I have to say that Palin sounds terrible when you are just listening to her. It was too much too soon for her and she is still on a very steep learning curve.
If you want a truly depressing experience, read the transcript of the debates. Both of them sound like blithering idiots. It's really a national embarrassment that we cannot get candidates who are better extemporaneous speakers. I would be tempted to exempt Obama from this criticism, but when you read the transcripts of what he says, they aren't too hot either.
It's staggering that we cannot produce politicians who are capable of organizing their ideas better when speaking in these debates.
Joe, much like Jackson, often makes the mistake of confusing facts with plausible notions. No argument there, BUT, at least he tries to answer the questions asked of him.
Palin just downright offends me on every level, though, in the right circumstance I'd probably do her.
The right circumstance being that she would let you, Jackson?
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