Laughing Joe Biden: A Fool Smirks While Americans Suffer (Photoshop)

Joe Biden laughs off four years of abject failure.

November 6, 2012 can't come fast enough.

Joe Biden: Court Jester Joe, or Just a Grinning Idiot? (Photoshop)

The Vice-Presidential Debate: Joe Biden vs. Paul Ryan

I watched the big Vice Presidential debate.  It was somewhat entertaining.

I thought the moderator, Martha Raddatz of ABC News, did a professional job.  I didn't feel that she was overtly biased one way or the other.  She asked good questions.

Who won the debate?  There was no clear winner, though I thought Ryan stuck more closely to facts, whereas Biden was his usual bombastic and demagogic self.  Ryan had Biden rattled early in the debate, where Biden felt he had to interrupt Ryan by speaking over him.  Still, the Fox News panel of undecided voters unanimously agreed that the debate had not influenced their choice one way or the other.

Biden is being criticized tonight by many who felt he was disrespectful and rude, by laughing and smirking while Ryan was speaking.  This behavior was seen on television via the split screen, showing the faces of both candidates simultaneously.

Personally, I thought Biden scored points on his defense of the Administration's Afghanistan withdrawal plan, where they have announced in advance that we will withdraw our troops by 2014, come what may.  Biden argued that we have put the Afghani government on notice that they must step up and take over the task of their own defense, and our departure deadline puts pressure on them to do that.  Good argument, and it changed my mind on the point.  (Romney-Ryan's position wasn't materially different than that of Obama-Biden, anyway.)

Biden couldn't defend the Obama Administration's disgraceful neglect of security in the Benghazi attack on our embassy on September 11, 2012.  Clearly, that debacle reflects very poorly on Obama, both in the criminal negligence of allowing it to happen, then in the obvious attempt to cover it up with a phony story about a YouTube video.

Ryan scored on the economy, as it is clear that the Obama Administration hasn't a clue on economics, job creation and the role of tax policy in maximizing prosperity.  Biden's only stance was what it has always been, tax the crap out of the "rich," bleed those suckers dry.  This always turns me off.  The Democrat vision is that the role of the upper class is to financially support the middle class, and this is the only way the middle class can grow -- as a kind of parasite off the rich.  A better view is that the upper and middle classes need each other -- the former as employers, investors and entrepreneurs, the latter as employees, investors, managers and customers.  They need a symbiotic relationship, not a parasitical one.

My general conclusion:  The VP debate won't materially affect this campaign or the fortunes of the candidates.  If Obama was hoping that Biden would somehow pull his polls out of the toilet, he will be disappointed.  Meanwhile, stay tuned for the next presidential debate, next Tuesday, October 16.

Update:  Twitter feed shows a CNN poll rating Ryan the winner on several points:

Clearly, the above statistics indicate that Ryan won the debate and possibly added more momentum to the Romney-Ryan ticket.

Sarah Palin Debates Joe Biden: My Take

I watched the Sarah Palin - Joe Biden vice presidential debate tonight. Sarah Palin did just fine. I was pleased by her performance.

Sarah was informed and knowledgeable on the questions presented to her by Gwen Ifill, an Obama supporter and moderator of the debate. In spite of GOP concerns about Ifill skewing the questions in Biden's favor, she was professional and maintained an air of impartiality. I think she did much better than most moderators of prior debates, almost all of whom seemed pro-Democrat to me.

Who won the debate? Who cares? The fact is, Palin came across as warm, sincere and real. She certainly helped the McCain ticket tonight. Will this translate into a large pro-McCain bounce in the polls? I doubt it. Maybe 1 or 2 points if we're lucky.

I liked how she was cordial and respectful to Biden even while disagreeing with him and sometimes taking him to task, particularly over comments he made in support of McCain and against Obama before Obama selected him as his VP running mate.

Joe Biden also did a good job and raised himself in my esteem. He never got really mean. He launched no personal attacks. He was a good soldier for Obama, a good lieutenant to his commander, and argued well for Obama; however, he seemed a bit like the lawyer he is, a man trained to argue positions he may not actually support in his own mind.

The truth, I think, is that Palin won Biden over along with many other people. She paid him sincere compliments, about his son serving in Iraq, about his wife's 30 years as a teacher. At the end of the debate Palin and Biden stood smiling at one another, shaking hands and exchanging private conversation. Whatever Biden's beliefs about politics, he did not seem to dislike Sarah Palin; just the opposite.

Which just goes to prove how good she will be as the next Vice President of the United States.