JayarJackson

After the first and last Vice Presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin wrapped up late Thursday night, the country looked to find out who won the debate.  The answer to that question can never be given to anyone, as analysts determine the victor based on anything from the facts to their looks.  Debates are sometimes determined by which candidate exhibits knowledge and a firm grasp on ways to solve the country’s problems.  Conversely, debates are also sometimes judged based on who wore the sharper outfit, the shape of their faces and how attractive their smiles were, and which candidate more seamlessly pulled of being a politician to seem more connected to the people watching at home. 

Thursday night was a tale of two extremely different running mates.  One illustrated an airtight handle on the facts and issues that face our nation by reactively answering the moderator’s questions.  The other read her essay, simply hitting the points that were prepared for her, and ignored the entire debating process of answering the questions! 

While Biden spoke of details behind the Iraq War and why it has been a disastrous expedition from the beginning, Palin stumbled into the slogan, “You just want to wave the white flag of surrender.”  While Palin tried to skirt the causes of global warming and simply say we need to fix it, Biden pointed out the elementary mindset that “we need to know the causes in order to fix it.”  If Palin were a car mechanic faced with a grounded car, leaking fluids and not running, she’d rather tell her customer she’ll fix it without looking under the hood for the source of the problem. She doesn’t want to point fingers at that old radiator or that oil leak, she just wants to start with the trunk.  As Senator Biden backed up every single point he made with hard facts and numbers, Governor Palin winked to the camera, piled on folksy rhetoric, delivered empty and false charges of tax hikes, and proposed nonsensical solutions void of any facts. 

In the end, since Palin disappointed many Democrats that were hoping for a “moose in headlights” moment from her on live television, this was immediately seen as a win for her.  After her disastrous interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric where she showed she has no idea what the Bush Doctrine is and that she can’t name Supreme Court decisions she disagrees with, the bar for Palin was set at world record lows.  For those that paid close attention to her vacant answers, she only managed to not obviously show that she has no idea what she’s talking about. 

If we have gotten to the point in this country that a winning moment for a candidate for Vice President is simply participating in a debate where she doesn’t make a fool of herself, then we’ve turned into a country of losers.  This is like saying “sure Usain Bolt won the 100m and 200m at the Olympics in record times, but dammit I really like the way Darvis Patton didn’t fall on his face in the middle, he’s the true Olympic champion in my book!” 

--JJJ

 

Leave a Reply