Real brief, then I have to run...Joe Biden won the debate hands down. He was presidential, steady on his feet, and didn't get caught up in his own words, as he so often does.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was impolite ("Can I call you, Joe?" What the fuck! No, GOVERNOR PALIN, you should call him SENATOR BIDEN!), was the typical Fascist-Republican (refusing to answer the questions posed by the hapless moderator and instead hammer unrelated talking points again and again and again), and by the end of the night proved she wasn't ready for the job. Her performance may not change any minds, but if there were any undecided voters out there, she did nothing that might cause them to cast their ballot for the Republican ticket.
Insta-polls taken immediately after the debate show the voting public agreeing with my assessment:
On the question of who won the debate...Other reactions from around the web...
CBS:
Biden 46%
Palin 21%
CNN:
Biden 51%
Palin 36%
Matt Yglesias:
I think a visitor from Mars watching this debate would have been struck by the fact that Sarah Palin could barely get a paragraph out without mangling what she was trying to say...if you already had some serious doubts about her, I think she scarcely put those doubts away.Ezra Klein:
...she used her closing statement so defensively. But whatever: Good for her. She should give up on politics and get a talkshow. Otherwise, she should learn how to answer the press's questions.Noam Scheiber:
When Palin started off, you thought, "Wow, she seems so fresh - so human and easy to relate to. How can we compete with that?" Then, as the debate wore on, you thought, "Hmm, okay, she still seems human, but not quite what I'm looking for in a vice president." And, by the end, as the vacuous answers piled up, it was more like, "Good God, keep this woman away from the Oval Office."
