[I thought Biden won it on points but lost it on demeanor. Biden was fluent and comfortable and explained things well. Ryan seemed constrained and formal. But most polls show him the winner.]
This evening, vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) took on Vice President Joe Biden in a wide-ranging debate covering everything from Libya and Iran to the economy. Biden’s demeanor was the story of the evening: smirking, laughing, snorting, shaking his head. The strategy seems to have been to laugh off America’s problems, since the Obama administration has done nothing to solve them.
The debate itself was secondary to the demeanor of Biden. Biden had nothing to run on, so he decided to distract. And those pearly whites were a bizarre distraction from what could have been a substantive debate.
Biden interrupted Ryan repeatedly. He would not allow Ryan to finish an answer; where he stopped interrupting for even a few moments, his moderator ally, Martha Raddatz, jumped in to help him cut Ryan short.
This was the big problem for Biden going in: the American people didn’t like him. His favorables were far lower than Ryan’s. This debate did him no favors. And if the vice presidential debate was any indicator of the new, aggressive strategy of the Obama/Biden ticket, it will be off-putting to Americans in a dramatic way. It appears blustery and unlikeable – and most of all, dramatically angry and unserious.
Biden did it because Obama was somnambulant during the first debate. So Biden came out swinging. And more than anything else, he came out like an enormous bully, determined not to let Ryan get in a word edgewise.
Martha Raddatz, the moderator, did nothing to stop Joe Biden from repeatedly interrupting a very polite Paul Ryan, forcing Ryan to exclaim that the American public might prefer for each to speak in turn; her questions were significantly tougher for Ryan than they were for Biden, and she even allowed Biden to jump in to supplement questions. The time imbalance was substantially in Biden’s favor.
As far as the substance, the debate was a mockery. With regard to foreign policy, Biden told lie after lie. Biden continued pushing the awful Obama administration flip-flops on their Libya story; Ryan accurately called it an “unraveling of American foreign policy.”
Biden suggested that Iran was slowing its nuclear development, without a shred of evidence. On Afghanistan, Ryan showed fluency, but Biden’s anger overcame Ryan’s fluency and made Ryan appear tentative.
Ryan told the truth about Obama’s economic record, slapping Biden hard on the unemployment rate in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Biden repeated tired falsehoods about the size of the Romney tax cuts, and whined about lack of specifics on the Romney economic policy. He did score points on Romney’s tax policy; Ryan didn’t respond with the alacrity necessary, and didn’t give a good answer to why he had signed two letters requesting stimulus grants for constituents in his district. On defense policy, Ryan cited Obama’s defense cuts as problematic; Biden suggested they were just fine.
There were memorable moments. At one point, Biden questioned the infamous Mitt Romney statement about “the 47%.” Ryan shot back that Biden was surely familiar with saying things he didn’t quite articulate correctly. Biden then said he only said things he meant – which will surely make Americans wonder just what he meant when he said that Romney would put people in chains, or that the middle class had been “buried” under Obama.
But once again, the substance of the debate was not the substance. It was the attitude. Ryan was soft-spoken, sincere, and serious. Biden seemed to take the entire proceeding as a farce. In treating it so, he made it so. More importantly, he made the Obama administration look like what it is: a bullying, bloviating, obnoxious administration more interested in talking over its opponents than working with them to improve the lives of Americans.
Mr Biden doesn’t just smile continuously, in the manner of a grinning idiot. He makes funny-faces like an experienced clown. He snickers. He leers, as if he were at drunken party at a strip club. And he interrupts the other participant in the only vice presidential debate that comes our way once every four years in this country. The truth squad folks say he did that 82 times when Ryan was using his allotted time to answer questions posed by Raddatz, the debate moderator, or responding to the vice presidential giggler.
All this might be acceptable in one of the ubiquitous television talk shows with the talking heads lined up on either side of the show moderator.
But this was a supposed to be a serious discussion between two men competing for the high position of the man who shall be a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States of America.
And I now find myself wondering how the country came to be saddled with this clown in what is supposed to be the second highest position in the governance of our country.
Small wonder that our country is being held in increasing disregard both by friends and enemies.
In the great days of the Romans, two millenia ago, their statesmen were measured by themselves, other members of the senatorial class of the Roman state, and by foreign leaders from the standpoint of perceived gravitas. Leaders such as Caligula and Commodus, who lacked that quality and who shamed the very men they were supposed to lead as chief of state, did not long survive. And when a string of such half-rate persons acquired the imperial dignities and abused the same, the Roman state declined all the faster.
It is time to retire the giggling monkey-face. We have so many problems to deal with in this country that we have no time to coddle highly-placed idiots who make jokes over serious discussions of national policy.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ Larry Shapiro:
Ur comment is simply ridiculous. There was NOTHING new in the debate. Biden undermined himself (he must have taken a dose of laughing gas. He was out of control.) and Ryan was a polite bystander.
There was nothing new in the debate but JB was a old, dismissive BULLY.
For the democrats anything was a WIN. If the republicans had been bullying the Biden way they would have called it a shame.
As a “limey” observer from across the pond, originating “fun der heim” I’m flabbergasted that little had been made of Biden’s description as “malarkey” (nonsense) the long-running threat posed by Iran. I suppose the average American doesn’t even know the meaning of the word and the implications. All they care about is domestic policy and don’t realize that after the Little Satan, comes Big Satan. Nowadays, an American president is also looked upon as the leader of the free world. But what we have here, at least as far as foreign policy is concerned, is a wimp. Iran could have been brought to its knees by a strong American leader without having to resort to war, now it’s too little and too late.
As a survivor who has been through it before, and concerned for Israel’s safety, I fail to understand how any Jew can still support Obama; these ersatz Jews remind me of the ghetto Judenrat in Poland!
It’s important to be able to see the truth thru all the lies, incompetence, smoke, mirrors and song and dance from the Obama and
the Democratic camp. And it’s hard to believe that anyone would vote for him after his disastrous 4 years in office.
As an electonics technician and systems engineer for the last 36 years, I’ve been involved in design, repair and installations
of almost every kind of complex system under the sun as well as software design. My systems either work or don’t work. And the
blame will fall on me if I can’t get the job done providing there were no circumstances outside of my control that prevented me
from getting the job done. I have no where to hide. Wish it were the same with politicians.
Larry’s response was all Lib. Reality denial and Lib use of their latest choice word – liar, an act of self projection if ever there was one. Maybe we should thank him for not adding racist. I was looking for a choice term for the grinning whitey. Smarmy comes to mind. Even my wife, an avowed Independent who apologetically voted for Obama’s first term, could not stand the Scranton lad.
Paul Ryan’s BIG MISTAKE last night was that he did not, at the first interruption by Joe Biteme, turn to him and say, “Joe, I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t interrupt you if you will have the courtesy not to interrupt me. Fair enough?”. That would have put Joe on the defense and showed leadership and command of the situation by Paul. Man, was I ever rooting for him to do it.
I observed that when Obama lost the debate with Romney, all of Obama’s media supporters acknowledged his lackluster performance. What I’m seeing today are GOP media supporters calling Biden a big drunk, disrespectful, too much mugging, etc., etc. The bottom line for me is that Romney’s supporters are big babies. Get over it. Ryan looked like a big liar without any substance and Biden cleaned his clock. I guess in the debate cycle it’s one..one.
@ Donald freyman:
The Marxist democrat party is full of homicidal sociopaths–what else can be expected from a party who promotes the genocidal mass murder of the unborn–including those who have been born! Their hands are stained with the blood of over fifty three million Americans–including millions more in other nations!
@ C.R.:
@ C.R.:
THE WORD IS OUT- BIDEN IS A HOMICIDAL MANIAC- PASS IT ON.
In addition to being mentally ill and incompetent–Joe Biden lost in every way–his attitude is reflective of what the Marxist democrat party stands for!
I’d just add that I do not think that what occurred should be called a “debate”. There was no substantive argumentation occurring — simply Biden sneering, smirking, and snarling, in-between calling Ryan a “liar” ( as Biden repeatedly lied). This has become such common fare in the Leftist world — they lower any discussion to ad hominem attacks — never addressing actual issues. This is such a tragedy, especially because it UNDERMINES democratic principles. Dialogue, respect, manners, reciprocity, tolerance for opposing viewpoints — rather than a cut-throat, Islamic-style winner take all mentality.
I did not watch the “debate”. I have seen the clips of Biden laughing inappropriately, and heard his lies. Biden’s behavior, IMO, was unconscionable and unfitting for a VP. He brought dishonor not only onto himself, but onto the office which he holds. What a disgrace. One needs to be embarrassed on his behalf, since obviously Biden has no shame.
(My comments from late last night on Dean’s World (deanesmay.com)
I watched the entire 90 minutes via Fox News on my computer screen. Which means the audio came across fine, but the video jerked back and forth as if this were a Charlie Chaplin silent film.
Biden is a stronger debater than Obama, and unlike his boss, he needs no teleprompter. But making faces and mugging before a television camera and repeatedly interrupting his opponent with snide remarks more befits Jay Leno and other television funnymen than it does the supreme leadership of the United States.
But Biden, who must have been a high-quality courtroom lawyer at some point in his life, is not running for president. And if Obama wins the election next month, the only way he ever is likely to be president is almost certainly conditional on Obama dying in office or being removed from it by impeachment agreed upon the US Senate. In any case, Biden, who will be 70 years old next month, is approaching the end of his public career, either in January 2013 or four years later in January 2017. Too bad, in a way, because Biden is an entertaining man.
Ryan was certainly more focused on the key points of the Romney-Ryan plan for reforming taxation loopholes and related measures as a key means of enabling private investment to grow the millions of new jobs needed to rebuild the rapidly-shrinking US economy.
As the debate proceeded through its 90 minutes, with Raddatz in much better command of the debate and asking much tougher questions than Lehrer ever did in the first presidential debate, I had my eye on a poll Fox News was taking among debate viewers, asking what we thought was the most important issue facing the country in this national election. It should be no surprise that more than 75% of the respondents said it was the economy. All other issues shrank to insignificance in the face of the economic crisis: abortion vs right to life, foreign policy, progressive taxation, Medicare. But nobody seems to give a damn because most people are wondering how long they will still be gainfully employed, or increasingly, when and if they ever will be working full time again on a salary or with wages sufficient to support a family. That, I think, is why Obama will lose the election no matter what Biden thinks
Next week it will be Obama and Romney once again. And the president, who now has been exposed as an empty shell propped up by his army of aides and their talking points, will still have no access to a teleprompter. Romney will be taking advantage of that even more so next Tuesday, because he now knows his opponent’s greatest weakness.
The Democrats never should have allowed themselves to becomr beguiled as they did with what is little more than an affirmative action president trying vainly to deal with domestic and foreign crises for which has no answers other than more hope for change people can believe in.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
RNC has new ad highlighting ” leave’m laughing chains Biden “.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/republicans-biden-laughed-issues_654261.html
The Americans who vote for this dingbat deserve all that shall befall unto them.