Between smirks, Joe Biden takes the fight to Paul Ryan in vice presidential debate
But Republican does a far better job of laying out a vision for the next four years
Joe Biden and Paul Ryan carried out a far more substantive debate than did their running mates.
Well, Joe Biden was, uh, spirited in his matchup against Republican vice presidential contender Paul Ryan — which is to say he went all out to prosecute Mitt Romney as a flip-flopping right-wing fabulist.
And he was far more forceful at that mission than President Obama was in his disastrous debate performance. Perhaps that will stem Romney’s momentum — particularly among voters who are not especially interested in what Obama promises to deliver over the next four years.
And perhaps not. Because Biden offered virtually nothing as to the future throughout a contentious conversation indelibly marked by the vice president’s often smirking, often scoffing attitude.
He was hot and dismissive, even to the point of offputting arrogance, his facial expressions and tone aimed clearly at conveying disdain for the Republican ticket, whether the topic was tax policy, the unemployment rate or the Middle East.
But these are no laughing matters, not with 23 million people out of work, not with Iran fast approaching nuclear weapons capability, not with a narrowly divided electorate still struggling to decide whether Obama or Romney has the better plan for restoring America to prosperity.
The vice president’s look into the future consisted mainly of attempting to assure voters with rather theatrical sincerity, “It’s going to be okay.”
Ryan was cooler and more cerebral in presenting the Romney brief. He showed a composed command of facts and held his own pretty much throughout, fairly well answering Biden’s attempts to undermine the credibility of the Romney program but falling shorter than he surely would have liked in dissecting the Obama record.
While lacking the gravitas and emotional punch that well served Romney, he looked forward more than Biden did.
That said, this was Biden’s show.
He partially got in the lick — eight days late — that so many Democrats had been waiting for, saying: “I've had it up to here with this notion that 47%” — before trailing off without specifically nailing Romney’s description of that proportion of America as composed of people who don’t pay taxes and refuse to take responsibility for their own lives.
Then, between grins, he pummeled relentlessly, at times going over the top into mischaracterization, notably in claiming complete sync with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s publicly stated position on the Iranian march to nuclear capability. |
