VP Debate

I watched last night’s vice-presidential debate as planned. Then as planned, I went out for a few Capt. Morgan’s. No alcohol hang-over today, though I’m sure this political hang-over will last at least until the next presidential debate on Tuesday.

Since I know I’m going to vote Obiden, I was obviously disappointed by last night’s debate. Why? Because Biden didn’t slam her to the floor (figuratively, of course), nor did Palin implode (again, figuratively…maybe). And unlike Palin’s network interviews, the questioner/moderator didn’t force her to answer the questions. The result was that Palin successfully avoided answering questions she didn’t know (I’m still wondering if she even heard the question about her Achilles heel – or even if she knows what that means) and instead just repeated the campaign’s talking points, which she was obviously trained to do. She seemed to be more competent than she appeared in her interviews, so ignorant people will believe she can be a good vice president. I dare say that no one’s minds were changed by last night’s debate.

One of the things that bothered me about Palin was that she repeated the party line about Obama raising taxes. McCain did the same thing: he kept insisting that Obama’s plan would raise taxes, while Obama (and Biden last night) continually said that his plan would NOT raise taxes for those earning less than $250k a year. They seem to be doing the exact same thing that Bush did: if you say it enough, it must be true. Maybe it’s a strategy to keep Obiden on the defensive, but frankly, I want leaders who don’t play deceptive games just to squeeze out a few votes. Obiden have said that their plan won’t raise taxes for the middle class; until McPalin prove otherwise, they should stop repeating their lies.

Something else I wish the candidates would do is finally define what they mean by “preparations” and “pre-conditions” when it comes to diplomacy. Last night Palin repeated McCain’s assertion that Obama would sit down with the ‘crazy’ dictators of the world with no pre-conditions. This Palin described as “dangerous.” In my mind, a ‘preparation’ is something like having your lower-level diplomats begin talks with the other country or even something like deciding where to have the talks. ‘Pre-conditions’ are saying that we won’t even talk with you until you stop X. Obama’s point is that, if you want the other country to stop X, you don’t set that as the pre-condition because then you’re eliminating the need for the talks before they even begun. Obama wants to deal with the other countries diplomatically and with preparations; this is the wisest and best course of action going forward into the future. The fact that Palin (and really, I mean her handlers) thinks this is “dangerous” just shows that she (and by extension, McCain) still has a 20th century mentality. (Not to mention, it seems foolish to make such a judgment when you don’t even know what you’re talking about. She mentioned Kim Jong Il and Ahmadinejad as the leaders we’ll have to deal with. At this point, Kim Jong Il hasn’t been seen in months and may be ill; Ahmadinejad is only the president of Iran and does NOT have control of his country’s security. I find it disheartening that Palin didn’t know or mention either of these things.)

Another thing that bothered me about Palin last night is she said that the constitution guaranteed the legislative power of the VP. In other words, she would want to step in and take the same role as Cheney. Hmmm. I was so glad to hear Biden contradict her, saying that the constitution does not give the VP legislative powers, and furthermore that Cheney is the scariest VP in our history. (Ok, I can't remember exactly what Biden called Cheney, but it was something like that.)

Not matter what you think of him, you have to admit that Biden's got balls!