You never know what you're going to get with Joe Biden. As he says, he always means what he says. But he doesn't always say it right. I have no doubt that when the postmortem is complete, we'll find out that he blew a couple of his statistics. He knows what he's talking about, he just gropes for the wrong figure sometimes. So, I was understandably nervous before the debate started. My brother called me in a white knuckled panic about it. See how distressed Democrats get when we experience a downturn? As Stephanie Miller said, when conservatives get bad news, they want to kill the messenger. When liberals get bad news, we want to kill ourselves. [Story continues below]
Very early on, I was unsure. I noticed the smile things that right-wing world is focusing in on like a laser. I thought Paul Ryan looked all right, though oddly, his widow's peak stood out more than usual, and he looked like he could use a tailor. But it wasn't long--maybe a couple of minutes--before the cloud lifted. I whooped and hollered. I applauded, several times, sometimes up on my feet! I worried a little that Biden was interrupting too much, then reconsidered. It's what we wanted President Obama to do last week. When you're being pelted with lies and distortions, it's very difficult to let them sail by. Biden didn't let them. And eventually Ryan got in on the act.
Overall, I thought Biden did very well, with his command of politics (minus any demerits for flubbing a stat), and I just loved his rat-a-tat-tat swat-down any time Ryan ticked him off. Ryan for his part wrongly thinks that speaking directly to the camera works for him. It doesn't. Those blue peepers are creepy. The way Ryan guzzled water, I kept wondering how badly he had to pee. And I thought it was hilarious when moderator Martha Raddatz (who was spectacular, by the way) kept pressing him for specifics, and he responded repeatedly with vagueries.
I frankly can't imagine how you could call this any worse than a draw, and from my perspective Biden was far-and-away the winner. He did exactly what he needed to do: put the ship back on course, and energized his supporters. I'll admit it again, I was nervous before, but I was sick and tired of the hand-wringing and bed wetting by some liberals. Biden has squelched that and turned it around. Way to go, Joe!
