My first impression from the Biden-Palin debate was that the media has failed us again. I have always liked and respected Gwen Ifill, and considered her to be a good interviewer. But she dropped the ball again and again tonight. I wound up feeling that any member of the audience could have been chosen as the debate began and would have done as well as Gwen Ifill did.
Palin acknowledged that she can’t answer the questions AND she was saying that it just doesn’t matter. Her "opponent" was the only participant in the “debate”, trying to answer sometimes difficult and meaningful questions while she gave her stump speech, leaped into her memorized talking points and used numerous clichés and innuendo. The moderator did not try to hold Palin accountable for these practices. Palin twice referred to General McKiernan as General “McClelland”, and that was not picked up on by Ifill either, nor by Biden for that matter.
Palin falls back on her energy “expertise” ~ why no questions about that? what is her background on “energy”? what is her education, engineering qualifications, experience in distribution, pricing, dealing with pollution, etc.? No questions, just a general acknowledgment that Palin truly IS an expert on energy.
Palin Played the “sex card”. Winking, flirting. I personally found that insulting. It also led me to wonder how touched other people, like King Faisal, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown, Hu Jintao, Kim Jong-il, or Mugabe, among others, might be affected by such hustling behavior. Or maybe she would just reserve those irresistible flashes for Pelosi or Biden or maybe the CEOs of Exxon-Mobile, Shell, BP and other easily swayed people like those.
She referred to expanded powers for the VP, especially legislative powers! Wow. How will that play in truly conservative circles? And why didn’t Ifill pick up on that and ask her to elaborate?
Palin probably played well to her conservative base, but her unfortunate references to comments by Reagan (Morning in America, Shining city on a hill, etc.) only served to remind us how far she falls short of even that pathetic figure.
And as far as Biden goes, I got the feeling that Biden is there and always WILL be there. Regardless of what might happen, Joe Biden seems to be a steady performer and a person with a lot of contacts on both sides of the congressional aisle and beyond our shores. He looked very reassuring to me and I felt better about him after the debate than I ever had before.
John Womack.
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