A Tale of Two Debates, and Relative Winners and Losers

Image from the Los Angeles Times

I've already written posts on the debate, this is more about the aftermath. I've seen it written in several places that if you watched MSNBC, you think Joe Biden triumphed handily. If you watched FOX "News," you think Paul Ryan scored big. If you watched CNN, it was a mixed bag, a draw.

I watched the debate on MSNBC, and I indeed thought Biden cleaned Ryan's clock. But, I came to that conclusion during the debate. It's a pool-feed of video, all of the stations got essentially the same thing. So my conclusions were not spoon-fed to me, they were my own. When the talking heads started opining, I was pleased that they had pretty much my reaction. And I was a bit startled that anyone would seriously say that Ryan won. To me, the fact that the main complaints from the right were a) Biden's demeanor: smiling/interrupting/gestures; and b) Martha Raddatz's modertion; tells me that they were not singling out Ryan as a winner, but Biden as the loser.

And here's what is really weird about that. Last week, Mitt Romney was louder, pushier, smirkier and lying his ass off-ier than President Obama. Obama was declared the loser, because he seemed off his game, reserved, retiring, milquetoasty. So, Romney "wins" using the same behavior that makes Biden "lose?"

Mind you, I don't think Biden lost, far from it. He is, as far as I'm concerned, the only genuine winner in the two debates so far. I still don't know what Obama was up to last week, but the already growing legend of a masterful Romney is just fiction. He did not do a good job, he merely put in a better performance than his competition did. I watched it. It was tedious. All the way through. The VP debate wasn't.

[Excerpt]

VP Debate: Biden, Ryan at each other on everything

At odds early and often, Joe Biden and Republican Paul Ryan squabbled over the economy, taxes, Medicare and more Thursday night in a contentious, interruption-filled debate. "That is a bunch of malarkey," the vice president retorted after a particularly tough Ryan attack on the administration's foreign policy. . .

Read more at: Los Angeles Times