Golly gee, Palin loses, you betcha!

[Joanne98]

posted by Steve Sebelius
Friday, Oct. 3, 2008 at 10:38 AM
Well, he did it. Joe Biden managed to go an entire 90 minutes debating Sarah Palin without losing his cool or smacking her in the head with a shovel. So, good job, senator. You win.

Not that you could blame Biden if he did lose it: Palin held her own, which is to say, she carefully regurgitated rehearsed talking points in a more-or-less cogent fashion, although at many points viewers could have been excused if they thought they were watching the Miss Alaska pageant as a particularly nimble contestant struggled through an uncomfortable question.

Palin said, in fact, she wasn’t going to answer the questions in the way moderator Gwen Ifill of PBS or Biden wanted, which was true, in that she wasn’t going to answer the questions. But we still managed to spy a few outrageous things worthy of highlighting. Here we go:

• Palin labeled the Barack Obama tax plan a “redistribution of wealth,” although nobody making less than $250,000 will likely see their taxes increased. Biden replied that it was simple “fairness” to tax weathier people more to pay for government programs. The truth? Our income tax system is a redistribution of wealth, and always has been. Do John McCain and Palin secretly want to end that “redistribution of wealth,” which by the way funds programs from Social Security and Medicare to the national defense? If so, we’d love to hear about it.

• Palin’s recent trick-turning for the oil industry was obvious, not only when she failed to defend McCain’s indefensible support for oil industry tax breaks, but also when she corrected Biden on the industry’s big slogan. “The chant is drill, baby, drill,” she said. Well, she would know. But Biden scored big-time when he mentioned that oil industry taxes Palin imposed in Alaksa should be taken nationwide. (She also increased the sales tax in her little town, which means when she says she cut taxes, she’s once more only telling part of the story.)

• “Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq,” Palin lectured Biden. Oh, really? Obama and Biden want to end a war that we had no business starting in the first place, a war that is a stain on our national honor. McCain and Palin want to continue that misbegotten conflict indefinitely. If this were the only issue on the table, the Iraq war alone would provide enough evidence that Obama should be the next president. “John McCain has been dead wrong,” Biden said flatly. And that is quite literally true.

• “Oh, man, it’s so obvious that I’m a Washington outsider and someone just not used to the way you guys operate,” Palin said, for once a statement that’s entirely true. “Like so many other politicians, you were for the war before you were against it. Americans are just craving that straight talk.”

Palin was referring to Biden’s explanation of his unfortunate vote to allow the use of force in Iraq, a vote he said was intended to keep pressure on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the U.N. While it would have been better for Biden to admit he was simply wrong, his point — “Nobody knew George W. Bush was so batshit crazy as to lie to the entire world and go to war on false pretenses only to thereafter mismanage the occupation and turn the entire thing into what our Special Forces might call a ‘complete goatfuck’,” — is nontheless defensible.

• Asked about what criteria should be used to employ a nuclear weapon, our notes reflect the following: “Palin says words.”

• Our notes also contain a not-so-rare “WTF?” beside this Palin statement: “I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president also if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure, too, that our president understand what our strengths are.”

Thank goodness constitutional law professor Biden was there to remind Palin that the Constitution provides no such authorization. Perhaps she was thinking of incumbent Vice President Dick Cheney? “Dick Cheney most dangerous vice president we’ve had in American history,” Biden summed.

• “America is that nation of exceptionalism…” Palin said at one point. Really? Because the notion of American exceptionalism — we can do whatever the hell we want, since we are right and good and pure and true — has pretty much been proven false during these past eight years. (People running for high office cannot mention this, lest they be considered anti-America, but we’re not running for anything, so we’re free to tell the truth.) Under Bush, we’ve proven we’re exceptional only in the amount of misery we can bring to the world. It should be the opposite: America should be looked at as a partner in progress globally, not a dictator. Which of the two candidates for president do you think can pull that off?

• Our favorite Palin flub: “All of us recognize he is the man we need to leave … to lead…” No, you had it right the first time.

http://blogs.lvcitylife.com/various-things-and-stuff/2008/10/03/golly-gee-palin-loses-you-betcha

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. this morning rightwing radio was thrilled with her performance and lamenting McCain not using her

earlier.