Sarah Rampant

That Sarah, gotta love her. She was confident and articulate. I'm imagining her striding out on stage with her beauty queen smile. I hear she had good audience eye contact—hard to see on the radio. What she did is she confidently articulated a lot of nonsense. Early on she said she might not answer questions the way the moderator wanted, which we saw later meant that if she didn't have an answer to the moderator's question, she'd answer some other question.
That's one way of showing your ignorance.

There was a lot of those inaccurate Republican talk points, like Obama is going to raise taxes on every American. Biden was good at getting right in there and refuting them. She didn't really answer back, unless I missed something, but would mouth the same baloney later. Clearly she had learned and prepped some stuff well and just stuck to it, no matter what the question or Biden's response.

Her handlers trained her well. Still, she's all packaging. The box is empty.

I wonder if they coached her on the gay rights question. I was surprised she was able to say that her ticket would support gay rights, excepting marriage, without gagging. Even tho she made that exception, I hear the rumble of many conservative bodies spinning in their graves. Good thing they didn't debate in Massachusetts. Angry Puritan zombies would have risen out of their graves and devoured them both.

The Obama ticket also does not support gay marriage. I suspect that Obama is not just saying that to console and cajole conservatives. I think he means it, which is too bad. Well, nobody's perfect. Our Joe, tho, I'd bet doesn't really give a damn.

Joe was good, showed himself knowledgeable, attacked without demeaning his opponent (in spite of the fact she knows as much about foreign policy as a box of rocks), no rambling or foot in mouth. Showed he actually knew what he was talking about, and I don't believe Palin had a good counter-response to any of his criticisms of John McCain. Alas, no "You're no Jack Kennedy" moment. Palin deserves one.

I'd give the debate to Palin on appearance and surprising everyone by not making a total fool out of herself like she did with the Couric interviews. But it couldn't cover up her lack of knowledge. Joe wins on the facts and showing that he is the one with the real goods where being a heartbeat away from the presidency is concerned.

Oh, I almost forgot, McCain's a maverick, and she's one too. Don't know how I almost forgot as she said this about 47 times during the debate. It was the little mantra she pulled out every time she had nothing to say.
Actually he thinks he is. Maybe because he's not born-again.

I'm looking at the transcript—how about this little zinger:
Palin —"One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt."

"Strict oversight?!!" You mean "regulation" of the capitalist system? Is this her or is this really a McCain thing?

You know, it's amusing to hear Republicans chide Republicans for not being watchdogs, for not "taking care" of their business—i.e., governing—but instead taking care of business. Taking care of the corporate entities who give them money instead of the poor suckers who voted for them.

Scary thing—she's in agreement with VP Cheney about the VP having more power under the constitution than was previously thought.
Palin—"Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation."

OY. Can you imagine this person pushing her own agenda instead of John McCains'?
"Let's get those nasty books out of the libraries, dammit! And FBI—I've got an ex-brother-in-law you better go after."

Biden had a good response:
"And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit. The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us."

Way to go, Joe.

Not that Palin noticed.

Anyhow, that's it.

One last thing:
AGAIN with the "I was struck by…" during the commentary afterwards.
NPR, you're driving me to thoughts of violence. I'M struck by the thought that you need a "cliché police" department there. I volunteer. I'd love to strike everyone who used "I was struck by" during the commentary.

That's it.
I'm outa here.