Halloween is coming up soon. Figured this was appropriate.

The man of steel.

Wow. Even readers of Fox News agree that Biden won the debate.

And it turns out that folks who worked with Bush and also on the McCain campaign seem to agree.

Perhaps it had something to do with the Sarah Palin debate flowchart:



And CNN's clever response indicator shows that many people didn't take the bait.

Biden repeatedly won high accolades on a wide range of topics. His remarks about the personal trials of having a wife and daughter die in a car accident sent responses from both male and females through the roof.

...

Much of the time, dial responses sunk when Palin began speaking. Respondents were generally unenthusiastic when she defended McCain. Her defense of the surge generated what was, at best, a flat response.

...

Following the debate, only one member of the focus group said they had decided to support the McCain-Palin ticket based on the debate; a half-dozen or more said they would now back Obama and Biden.


Somebody, please let the Drudge Report audience know:



They don't seem to get how this whole thing works.

Source: Getty Images

I'm glad to see that concerns about Ifill's role as moderator were unfounded, and that her line of questioning was even-handed and fair. I am irritated, however, that Palin's repeated use of talking points may have been successful at distracting the audience from the fact that she failed to answer over half the questions asked, but instead used that opportunity to simply prop up the McCain campaign.

In the previous post (referenced in the above paragraph), I mentioned the cynical complaint about Ifill's role as moderator; the complaint asserts that people are generally stupid and easily tricked by a biased moderator. But after watching the Biden/Palin debate, I believe the cynicism runs even deeper. I truly believe that the Palin's strategy was to simply repeat the easy-to-remember talking points or catch phrases from the campaign, even if it meant blatantly disregarding very specific questions. It's a marketing tactic: simply repeat a phase enough times until the audience can't get it out of their head.

When it came down to the specific questions, Joe Biden swept the floor with Sarah Palin. His answers were filled with substance, facts, and a real understanding of the situation. Palin was inaccurate, lacked credibility, and at times made no sense in the context of the questions.

I hate to think that America is that sucked in by the marketing, and that talking points can "win" a debate. I'd like to think that people are more interested in substance, and that the majority of viewers could clearly see which future VP could articulate their answers and explain their positions. But the more I view the polls, the more I think most people are simply incapable of thinking outside of party lines; these debates aren't a place to see which candidate can demonstrate that they are better aligned with the good of the people and the nation. These debates simply function as a place for people to cheer on their chosen candidate. And with nobody keeping score, both sides claim victory every time. If is how people truly are, the undecided voters may very well vote for the jingle they remember best.

image: Sarah Palin vs Joe Biden (cc) Thomas Hawk

Folks appear to be up in arms over Gwen Ifill's pro-Obama book, on account of her role as moderator in the upcoming VP debate between Palin and Biden, crying foul and unfair bias and other such things. I think that's a reasonable complaint -- Ifill has a responsibility to be impartial towards the opponents, and she has received criticism for not being so during the 2004 VP debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney.

To be honest, I think the scale of the outrage is a little silly. As shown by the polls, most people are incapable of being impartial, and the people most offended are those strongly biased in the opposite direction. And I'm sure that many of them feel they would be a better choice as moderator.

Additionally, the complaint itself is rather cynical. To claim that bias will affect a debate assumes that the general public is stupid, and can be easily tricked by a biased moderator. However, I suggest that any partiality during the debate will be painfully obvious, and that it's rather newsworthy to point out unfair bias during a debate. If I was keeping score, I'd say that any negative press about unfair bias during the debate would help the McCain campaign earn a few points. And I think that the current press about the situation may already have done so.

That said, it would probably be prudent for Ifill to step down as moderator because of the appearance of impropriety, as well as her reputation from the 2004 VP debate. If the public feels it will be unfair, what better way to further support your chosen candidate than to remove as many roadblocks as possible, even if it means yourself?


Note: The image above is followed up with the following comment by the creator:

I took the transcript from Sarah Palin's VP acceptance speech at last night's Republican convention (top) and compared it to the VP acceptance transcript given by Joe Biden from the Democratic convention (bottom) using wordle.

image: Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska (c) J Medkeff

Somebody over at boingboing linked to a Sarah Palin Interview generator as a result of her recent interview. According to the site's creators: "The answers are computer generated based on probabilities calculated from Sarah Palin's actual speech."

I can't stop laughing.

Q: What is your foreign policy experience?

I think if you ask that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the people of America are not fully satisfied with all the answers. It's going to be considered also. But again, it's got to put government and it's about putting government back on the verbiage that Senator McCain chose to use them. So we have opportunities for good in the war. You can't blink. You have to be allowed in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be provided the hope that all Americans have, instilled in us, because we're a democratic, we are today with so much collapse on Wall Street, affecting Main Street.


As best said by [former?] republican commenter on the boingboing post : "That being said, I can't even bear to listen to the word salad spewed by Palin any time she opens her mouth without a teleprompter. "

Folks at the Washington Post aren't giving her a lot of slack, either:

The trouble began late last week with what was widely seen as a disastrous Palin interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric in which the vice presidential nominee was barely intelligible on relatively basic questions of foreign policy. (emphasis mine)

...

Among independents, Palin saw her favorable ratings drop from 60 percent in early September to just 48 percent last week while her unfavorable ratings rose from 26 percent to 36 percent.

If Biden can keep himself under control (and that's a big if), this coming VP debate is going to be a disaster for the Republicans.


MORE:

It crossed my mind that people who didn't watch or read the interviews might not have any context here, so here you go.

Q: Why isn't it better, Gov. Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas, and groceries, [to] allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

"That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it's got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade -- we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation."

And there you go.

Between the current global economic crisis (DJIA took a 700 hit during the bailout vote, which did not pass), Russia's nuclear relationship with Chavez, the beginning of what looks to be a busy hurricane season, all the while ramping up to a foaming-at-the-mouth frantic November election, I'd say we're in for a wild ride...

... for the next several years.

EDIT:

McCain: Obama policies will deepen recession!

Obama: McCain's deregulation too risky for economy!

Oh, shut up, the both of you. This finger-pointing is nothing but fodder for political cartoons. It's shameful.

This was a request for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, in the form of a pendant to be worn on a chain. Looks dangerous.

Finally got around to finishing the horse and rider figurine.

I originally made this figurine, thinking that it was a giant, flailing people through the air. I later discovered that the giant was, in fact, an ordinary sized man, and babies were attacking him.