The Joe Biden Show

October 6, 2008

permalink to:

 

The Joe Biden Show

By CHARLES M. BLOW

Published: October 4, 2008 The New York Times

While watching the vice-presidential debate with the New York Young Republican Club, I realized it was not The Sarah Palin Show, but The Joe Biden Show. And, it was good.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04blow.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

———————————————————————————————————————————————
My comment to the article above “the Joe Biden Show”

If Palin were taking an oral exam at university, she would have failed miserably. Armed with intensive coaching on republican talking points and some notes, she still was unable or unwilling to directly answer many of the questions presented by Ifill. When she did answer, she used sentences which defied comprehension because they not only lacked a substantive response to the question posed, but also because many lacked some of the parts of speech necessary to form a grammatically correct English sentence.

Her “talent” seemed to be the ability to deflect. She did so by using the passive voice, or ignoring the question altogether to recapitulate something that she had already said on a different topic, or just spewing gibberish composed of fragments of the talking points which were crammed into her head. Her constant, calculated use of colloquialisms, winks and inappropriate smiles added to the impression that she was speaking to the Wasilla PTA, rather than to the nation and the world.

 

 


Palin’s Alternate Universe

October 6, 2008

permalinkto: Palin’s Alternate Universe
By BOB HERBERT
Published: October 4, 2008 in The New York Times
In such a serious moment in American history, it’s hard to believe that someone with Sarah Palin’s limited skills could possibly be playing a leadership role

 

 


Sarah, You Betcha! Doggone It

October 4, 2008

So Palin had enough prepared notes to avoid sounding like a community college dropout on drugs. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Unless you’re running for the second highest office in the land.

Let’s see what some journalists had to say.

She subverted the whole purpose of the exercise by merely repeating the key points of her running mate, Sen. John McCain and ignoring questions that called for more specific answers.

…Palin’s answers in the debate were more about herself than about the policies of McCain or George W. Bush or even the country’s current economic crisis.

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow, one of the fastest-rising and most enigmatic personalities in talk television, listened patiently to Buchanan’s praise for Palin’s presentation and responded, “Boring but right versus exciting and wrong — that’s America’s choice?” Commentators on many of the networks marveled at Palin’s insistence on avoiding substantial comment on issues and on simply ignoring questions she couldn’t answer convincingly.

Palin basically stated early in the debate that this would be her strategy. She said she wasn’t necessarily going to respond to the questions of the moderator or charges from Biden, but instead, “I’m gonna talk right to the American people.” Since this was billed as a debate, not a speech, her remark came across as arrogant, and as an admission she would duck tough questions.

By Tom Shales Friday, October 3, 2008; Page C01Washington Post

————————————————————

Palin, in her 90 minutes on the stage Thursday night, left the firm impression that she is indeed ready to lead the nation — with an unnerving mixture of platitudes and cute, folksy phrases that poured from her lips even when they bore no relation to the questions asked.

“Let’s commit ourselves just everyday American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation,” she proposed when asked about the mortgage crisis. (HUH?)

“I want to go back to the energy plan,” she said when asked about the federal bailout plan.

“I want to talk about, again, my record on energy,” she said when asked about bankruptcy.

At other times, her answers defied comprehension, as when Ifill asked about her trigger for using nuclear weapons. “Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period,” she answered. (WTF?)

When backed into uncomfortable terrain, such as defending the Bush administration’s economic record, she exploded into cliche and non sequitur: “Say it ain’t so, Joe. There you go again pointing backwards again. . . . Now doggone it, let’s look ahead.” Before finishing her answer, she mentioned her “brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here’s a shout-out to all those third-graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate.”

By Dana Milbank Washington Post

—————————————————

My Gal: On sarah Palin’s speech patterns. Satire
by George Saunders September 22, 2008 The New Yorker magazine       

 —————————————————————————
    The End Is Near

Say Goodnight Sarah

October 3, 2008

Maybe Senator Joe Biden should bring a good cigar to Thursday’s debate. This way it will just look like an old Burns and Allen skit when non sequiturs and nonsense come flowing out of Governor Palin’s mouth, and everyone could just have a good laugh.

I was appalled, but not surprised when the latest episode of Katie Couric’s Palin interview was aired. Either Palin suffers from anomic aphasia, or she hasn’t read a Supreme Court opinion in her life. When Couric’s second question to Palin was for her to name another Supreme Court decision with which Palin disagreed, besides Roe v wade, Palin appeared stymied. She knew enough (sort of) to stay on topic and repeat the mantra of “States Rights” and Federalism, but as usual she lacked any knowledge of specifics. So the answer to Katie’s second question was a paraphrase of the answer that Palin had already given when answering the first question about Roe v Wade. When this was compared to Senator Biden’s answer to Couric’s question as to why Biden supported Roe v Wade, Palin’s lack of ability to express herself, as well as her general ignorance of major issues facing us, became even more painfully apparent.

So McCain expects us to believe that he puts Country first even after his stunningly inappropriate choice of a running mate. He is guilty of reckless grandstanding at its worst. Like suspending (give me a break!) his campaign. He injects election politics into the important discussion surrounding our current financial meltdown, contributes nothing, possibly motivates House republicans to reject the only viable offer on the table, blames Obama for politicising the process after delivering rhetoric which demanded Obama’s presence in Washington. Then he sits through the meeting, saying nothing except a few inconsequential remarks at the end of the meeting. Then he spends the next day on the phone even as his aides are proclaiming that Senator McCain didn’t “phone this one in”. Then we have the prematurely released ad declaring his victory in a debate that not only did not yet occur, but to which McCain had not even decided to attend; at least he hadn’t announced his intention to change his mind again.

Is this the person we want trying to solve the economic crisis? Is this the team that we want to represent us in dealings with Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russia, al Qaeda, et al? If he tries one of his foolish stunts in conducting our foreign policies, what price will we ultimately pay? This is a very dangerous time for America, and we need our A team to deal with the myriad challenges of the 21st century. Instead we will have a desperate, geriatric narcissist and a bubble-headed beauty queen at the helm if, God forbid, they are elected.

So, putting country first, I can only hope someone asks Governor Palin to “Say goodnight, Sarah”. And since she was in (like) second grade when Biden was elected, she may fail to see the humor in her own reply, which will probably be ”Good night, Sarah”.