Too Many Headlines To Choose From...

...here are just a few:

"Sarah Palin: the William S. Burroughs of Contemporary American Politics" (due to her rhetorical style of cutting and pasting her talking points)

"Will Somebody Please Tie a Tournequet Around Sarah Palin's Neck?" (because Biden hit not just the jugular, but the carotid as well)

"Nice To Meet You. Hey, Can I Call You Joe?" (uh, that's his name)

"Drill, Baby, Drill!" (kinda speaks for itself, don't you think?)

Take your pick...

I caught the vice presidential debate last night at Beulahland, which as it turned out was a great venue for it, even if the sound and video weren't synched up perfectly. And I've gotta tell ya, I think it was an absolute bloodbath for Palin. Biden was on point and in full command of the facts, and generally focused his attacks McCain rather than Palin herself, alleviating fears on the left that he'd come out of the whole thing looking patronizing or condescending. Palin, to her credit, managed to avoid falling down or comparing herself to John F. Kennedy, but she was scattered and evasive at best, and wrapped all of her points up in dodgy grammar and bizarre Alaska-speak. An interesting exchange came about eleven minutes in:

Gwen Ifill: "Governor, please, if you want to respond to what he (Biden) said about Senator McCain's comments about health care?"

Sarah Palin: "I'd like to respond about the tax increase..."

Joe Biden: Flashes first toothy grin of the evening.

Then she did it again two minutes later! Another notable punt on Palin's part came almost thirty minutes in when, after mangling her answer to a question on the current economic meltdown ("It's a toxic mess on Main Street that's affecting Wall Street"), she changed the subject, for the third or fourth time up to that point, to energy policy.

It pretty much went on this way for the next sixty minutes.

I'll give Palin at least one thing, though. She did call Biden on his support of "clean coal" technology, asserting that Biden himself had said that there is no such thing as clean coal. His response that she was taking his position on exporting said technology to China out of context wasn't very persuasive, and I haven't been able to dig up anything to confirm whether or not he's denied the existence of clean coal, but I will say that no matter how you slice it, coal is ultimately a very dirty energy source. Of course, offshore drilling isn't the obvious answer to rising energy costs as many assume it is, but that's another subject altogether...

All things considered, I'd definitely call the debate for Biden, and not just because I'm firmly planted on the far left of the American political spectrum (if anything, Biden and Obama are a little too close to the center for my taste; I'm particularly disappointed in their stance against gay marriage). Not that being on the far left really means anything in the context of American politics, but hey, Bob's yer uncle.

Incidentally, a friend recently sent me the Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart, which is hilarious! Have a look: