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Politics : THE WHITE HOUSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pompsander who wrote (23144)	10/3/2008 2:46:47 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 25737

In Palin's Mind Royce Tenney jspace.kansascity.com Here's what I've learned from the debate that must have been drilled into Palin's head since her plucking. 1. When debating, you don't have to answer any questions that you don't want to or haven't prepared for. 2. If you don't have any substantive answers to your opponent, resort often to repeating talking points. 3. If repeatedly asked to answer the question, simply tell the moderator you don't want to answer the question--then continue to talking points. 4. Appear as 'folksy' (read: vapid) as possible, because most of the voting public are threatened by intelligence. 5. Repeat the words 'Maverick' ,'Corruption', and 'Reform' as many times as possible--regardless of situational appropriateness. There are people--right now--who are convinced that Sarah Palin actually won this debates. In an effort to make sense of this, I quickly scanned the channel guide to make sure that I had just watched the same Vice Presidential that people are talking about. Nope, only one VP debate on TV. Damn. Hmmm...Ok, I now realize that Palin actually DID win the debate after I'd processed what had been said. She wasn't debating. She won based on the tried and true method of not answering the question, followed by the even more effective technique of 'repeat party talking points.' It became comical how many times she has been asked to clarify a talking point, or something that the ticket stands for--and the answer was another talking point. I suppose that answering the question isn't the purpose of a talking point. It's basically a simplistic phrase designed in order to resonate deep in the brains of the party core. My favorite part of the debate was when Biden gave Palin a civics lesson on the role of the Vice President. This was after she said that she'd look to EXPAND the powers of the VP--something to which people paying attention should take offense to, especially after eight years of Deadeye Dick Cheney. My favorite snapshot of how the night played out if you decided to avoid the circus: Washington Post (Eugene Robinson): Exactly an hour into the debate, Joe Biden began an answer by saying, "Facts matter, Gwen." To him, maybe. To Sarah Palin, maybe not. The pattern, so far, has been one of Biden presenting facts and Palin countering with… saying stuff. Sometimes she throws in a fact, but mostly she seems to be offering a string of approximate policy positions, encomiums to the American spirit, disputed interpretations of Barack Obama's record and anecdotes from Alaska. Perhaps the only people that the debates really matter for are the undecided. People who are diehard Republicans really don't care about what their common sense is telling them (along with the last few weeks) about Palin. They don't care that she doesn't seem to have a grasp on anything sustantive. She could have stood silent behind the podium tonight, drooled, then peed on herself and these people would still think she won. I do wonder how much of this is partisan loyalty, and how many of these people genuinly believe that Sarah Palin is what this country needs in the Nation's second highest office. I wonder if the new McCain-Palin tactic is to pretend that the last 8 years never happened, and not to make any effort to hide the rather obvious fact that their administration would simply be a continuation. Biden thouroughly destroyed the 'Maverick' mantra that Palin had been resorting to the whole night, and she had no response. Sadly, the bar has been set so low for her that all she had to do was not appear as stupid as she did during that Katie Couric interview. That was 'brain damaged' stupid. Tonight, she was 'C' student stupid. Mission accomplished. Submitted by Jenee Osterheldt on October 3, 2008 - 11:21am.

To: pompsander who wrote (23144)	10/3/2008 2:48:47 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25737

Editorial: The Vice-Presidential Debate October 3, 2008 nytimes.com We cannot recall when there were lower expectations for a candidate than the ones that preceded Sarah Palin’s appearance in Thursday night’s vice-presidential debate with Joseph Biden. After a series of stumbling interviews that raised serious doubts even among conservatives about her fitness to serve as vice president, Ms. Palin had to do little more than say one or two sensible things and avoid an election-defining gaffe. By that standard, but only by that standard, the governor of Alaska did well. But Ms. Palin never really got beyond her talking points in 90 minutes, mostly repeating clichés and tired attack lines and energetically refusing to answer far too many questions. Senator Biden did well, avoiding one of his own infamous gaffes, while showing a clear grasp of the big picture and the details. He left Ms. Palin way behind on most issues, especially foreign policy and national security, where she just seemed lost. It was in those moments that her lack of experience — two terms as mayor of a tiny Anchorage suburb and less than two years as governor — was most painfully evident. Asked about Israel, Ms. Palin reeled off her support for “a two-state solution, building our embassy also in Jerusalem, those things that we look forward to being able to accomplish with this peace-seeking nation.” Asked about the possible use of nuclear weapons, she declared “nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people and too many parts of our planet.” On Iraq, all she had to offer was the false accusation that Barack Obama wants to surrender. Mr. Biden directly challenged Ms. Palin’s debate prep on Afghanistan — pointing out that the commander there had disagreed with Mr. McCain’s call for an Iraq-style “surge” in Afghanistan. Ms. Palin tried to contradict him, but the most memorable part of her answer was that she got the general’s name wrong. One can argue (and her supporters will) that Ms. Palin is a newcomer and can’t be expected to know all of the wonkish details, that what matters is the image she projects. Except, anyone who is running for vice president in these very dangerous times needs to have detailed knowledge. When it came to domestic issues, Ms. Palin mainly relied on enthusiasm and humor, talking about hockey moms, soccer moms and Joe Sixpack almost as often as she used the word “maverick” to describe Mr. McCain or herself. But she offered virtually no detail — beyond the Republican mantra of tax cuts — for how she and Mr. McCain would address the financial crisis or help Americans avoid foreclosure or what programs they would cut because of the country’s disastrous fiscal problems. Ms. Palin’s primary tactic was simply to repeat the same thing over and over: John McCain is a maverick. So is she. To stay on that course, she had to indulge in some wildly circular logic: America does not want another Washington insider. They want Mr. McCain (who has been in Congress for nearly 26 years). Ms. Palin condemned Wall Street greed and said she and Mr. McCain would “demand” strict oversight. In virtually the next breath, she said government should “get out of the way” of American business. There were occasional, disturbing flashes of the old, pre-campaign Sarah Palin. Asked about the causes of global warming, Ms. Palin suggested that man had some role — but she wasn’t saying how much. In the end, the debate did not change the essential truth of Ms. Palin’s candidacy: Mr. McCain made a wildly irresponsible choice that shattered the image he created for himself as the honest, seasoned, experienced man of principle and judgment. It was either an act of incredible cynicism or appallingly bad judgment. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company