In Case You Missed Tonight’s Beatdown
Shorter Paul Ryan: “Lie. Evasion. Non-sequitur. Anecdote about someone from middle America substantially less coherent and relevant than Abraham Simpson at his most rambling. Overrule Roe v. Wade.”
Shorter Joe Biden: “Every obvious rejoinder Barack Obama inexplicably failed to make, in addition to some additional good lines.”
In an ideal universe, some journalists might figure out that International Man of Ideas Paul Ryan — who embarrassed himself in a way even Palin didn’t — is not particularly bright or well-informed.
These things are such shitfests.
At least Ryan isn’t being squishy about abortion. If only a talented Democratic politician believed there was a constituency of people out there who want to keep control of their bodies.
I didn’t watch so I confess I’m skeptical it was this bad/good. Really? Did Joe swear?
It was basically Mike Tyson vs. Bambi.
Except for my right-wing cousin, who facebooked that Biden was “digging a hole” with his smiling/barely suppressed laughter. I guess it depends on whether you were attempting to see reality or just making up your own.
That seemed a common theme among the wingers on Facebook during the debate. They really didn’t like that Biden was crushing Ryan – and enjoying it.
Oh, and cuz also said Ryan was “impressive.” They must grow better ganja down there in Florida.
They must grow better ganja down there in Florida.
Not really. Unfortunately.
I sympathize. I would enjoy smushing Ryan’s head, also.
It was more like Godzilla meeting Bambi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0dpk619oTM
Nope, Biden said ‘Stuff’.
And then he gave Ryan the finger.
That’s our Joe!
Oh, good I wasn’t the only one who saw that. The pen in his hand provided plausible deniability but, God, I loved that moment.
Yes, I started at that for a while. Was that intentional? I clearly interpreted it as the middle-finger to Ryan. That was right after the car wreck story by Ryan, right?
I noticed as well But I don’t believe that it was intentional.
He should have.
Who was that moderator? I could only tolerate a few minutes, but she seemed particularly well-informed about Social Security and Medicare.
Martha Radatz.
She prefaces a question about how we all “know Social Security and Medicare are going broke” and this is somehow “well informed”. That doesn’t pass the smell test.
Raddatz was what you want in a moderator, though. Willing to let the candidates crosstalk to an extent, but iron fisted about changing the topic.
Jim Lehrer should take a lesson when he wants to steal a debate spot from a woman or a minority in 2016.
She handled the candidates well – but some of her questions were really, really awful. “Mr. Vice President, please respond to the following line of rhetoric from Romney’s stump speech about the stimulus failing, served up as if it were gospel truth” is not a good question.
She also seems to have no problem with people hanging on till 70 for their benefits, asking Biden why raising the age as Ryan wants is such a bad idea. (I wasn’t totally happy with Biden’s response, either.)
I heard that remark as well, which is why I only stayed a few minutes. With such a well-informed moderator, it was clear that Village bubbles would not be disturbed much.
On the other hand, the evening was not a total loss. O’s go to a fifth game after the Giants sweep three.
the village is already preparing to treat Biden like Al Gore.
No politician will be treated like Al Gore again until their party has been in control of the White House for at least eight years and the economy is in good shape.
I think this is right. Besides, there’s a difference between smiling/laughing and sighing. Biden looked like he was enjoying himself.
In any case, I’m kind of with wengler on this. I find this whole exercise to be utterly embarrassing. We have VP debate and the very first thing that PBS–the “serious news source”–wants to talk about is not anything anyone actually said, but whether “independents” will be turned off about Joe Biden smiling too much.
*SMIRK*
*SMILE*
*SIGH*
*KICKS RYAN’S ASS*
*REFLECTS*
*SMILES*
So Biden smiling is a problem, but Romney smiling in his debate isn’t, because shut up that’s why?
Gotcha.
Also Biden was very rude, but Romney was just in control. You know, interrupting the President to tell him a liar is much meaner than smiling and laughing while the other guy… speaks less candidly then he should.
Ryan looks like a fucking moron.
“looks” like?
I don’t think “looks like” is the phrase you were going for there. Perhaps something simpler? An “is” maybe?
Paul Ryan looks like a sexual assault muppet.
“Point to the spot where the invisible hand touched you.”
Superb.
+1
Martha Raddatz is fucking awesome.
Tyson vs. Bambi is pretty much how it is.
Goodness. I’m very surprised to hear that after reading Ezra Klein’s
enthusiastic blow jobadmiring tribute to Ryan the Debater this morning.To be fair to Ezra Klein, he’s been appropriately rough on Ryan for the last couple years in a way the rest of the mainstream press hasn’t.
Well, if so, I’d say this morning’s one-man rainbow party more than made up for it.
^Not actually true. Maybe more centeredly disappointed? Check TNR article on good ol Ryan, and EK “just wherever the facts take me”- pathetic.
Ryan wasn’t really able to push much beyond his talking points.
Still though, fuck these ‘debates’. The only purpose they serve is to show us how fucked we are.
If that’s what you choose to see.
It’s Jersey Shore for political junkies- waiting to see what stupid things the people on the Teevee will say next.
And BTW I think Ryan stuck out his neck for the chopping block. Biden couldn’t go after Palin like this because (a) female and (b) total idiot without pretensions of policy chops. Ryan was asking for it.
I intentionally avoided the debate and took my wife out to dinner. Now coming back and checking blogs. YEEEEEEHAAAAAAAA!
The facts were obviously on Biden’s side but he drove them home. Now, the question is if Obama can adapt to Biden’s approach instead of trying to be Mr. Above-the-fray.
Bill Maher’s tweet summed it up nicely: “Hello 9 1 1? There s an old man beating a child on my tv”
The key moment was Uncle Joe pointing out to Lil Paul that, um, we want Afghan soldiers to defend the government of Afghanistan’s positions in the most dangerous area of the globe–not US soldiers. It’s just that simple. Yes, we’re drawing down, because it’s not our damn job.
I needed a drink and a cigarette.
Biden spent the whole foreign policy exchange trying to get Ryan to say what he means – I want to send more Americans to die in foreign wars.
Ryan just kept saying “you withdraw troops” and Biden kept saying “So you want to send more in?”
The whole exchange was embarrassing for Ryan. Clearly just dodging and dodging his true opinion, because it’s not popular to say you want to send more Americans to war. Yet it’s perfectly cool to accuse the other person of not sending enough.
The Biden laughing and smirking will be the 2012 Al Gore sighs.
Biden lost. Big time. A condescending, senile, fat, arrogant jerk-off.
Why yes, I would like some pancakes please.
Hide Anonymous Hide.
I’d hide too if my guy looked like such a doofus on the national stage.
Greta? Brit? Is that you?
Anonymous = Pat Caddell?
Coming by evening through the wintry city
We said that art is out of love with life.
Here we approach a love that is not pity.
This antique discipline, tenderly severe,
Renews belief in love yet masters feeling,
Asking of us a grace in what we bear.
Form is the ultimate gift that love can offer -
The vital union of necessity
With all that we desire, all that we suffer.
A too-compassionate art is half an art.
Only such proud restraining purity
Restores the else-betrayed, too-human heart.
Also, waffles are better.
Ja wohl. Sieg Heil! Heil Reagan!
Or maybe not.
Ya know, when one party is so evil as to propose the death of guaranteed health insurance for retired folks maybe sighs won’t seem so important.
You fucking wingnut fascist.
Tell ya what. Call up Karl Rove and ask him to pony up to replay the whole thing in prime time on November 5. I’ll watch.
What’s the matter, punkin? Did your Randian superman get stomped into a mudhole?
Oh, JenBob, at least one interested spectator really enjoyed Biden’s performance.
That ain’t no straw your grabbing hold of there, honeysuckle, that is your own tiny shriveled putz.
Pancake you say? Why yes, Paul Ryan does resemble one.
Yes, I love french toast. With powdered sugar.
I thought Biden’s bemused smiles were a perfectly calibrated signal: infuriatingly condescending to True Believers; clear sign to everyone else that he recognized “stuff” when he saw it and was going to respond to that “malarkey” with appropriate vigor and good humor.
“A condescending, senile, fat, arrogant jerk-off.”
Why are we talking about Rush Limbaugh?
P.S. Joe Biden doesn’t look fat to me.
I’m thinking about getting a waffle iron. I try to stay away from the single-use kitchen gadgets, but winter is coming, and waffles on a weekend morning sounds like just the thing, you know?
Instead of the waffles, could I have eggs over easy and a hot cup of fuck-offee?
That didn’t stop Luke Nepotism Russertnfrom tweeting that Biden brought “emotion” and RyN brought “facts.” Seriously.
He did bring “facts”. Not true ones, but at least declarative statements.
I think that’s too generous, unless “anecdotes with no point” count as “facts.”
That stings Scott. I hope I can get through this life without ever being “too generous” to the mortician.
He mean “factoids” but he ain’t know it.
+1 for the Snoop reference.
Russert’s full tweet said “facts/talkingpoints” or something like that. Still stupid, only slightly less slightly less…
Can Farley or one of the other naval history buffs here explain what the flip is up with Romney’s (and Romney-Ryan’s) insistence that we need a bigger navy? According to some numbers I could easily Google a couple of weeks ago, the US Navy has something like 80% of the world’s naval tonnage, and our very closest allies (the UK, Germany, France, Canada, Australia) combine for another 10-15%. I’m sure we could have all sorts of fascinating discussions about the relative merits of battleships, or how our navy should be composed for the missions of today and the future. But the idea that we can’t afford for the Navy to be smaller, when it outmasses any conceivable naval opponent by around 20-to-one, seems flat insane.
It’s not 80%, but it’s high. The figure I’ve always heard is that the USN equals the tonnage of the next thirteen navies (of which eightish are allies).
John “600-ship Navy” Lehman blathered about what they want recently. The big additions are a) a new FFG to replace the Perrys =and b) a Kirov-sized BMD ship, built around an amphib (LPD-17) hull. Because apparently, not only do we want to build ships for the sole purpose of flinging $30 million interceptors at decoy balloons, we want those ships to be too slow to keep up with a Carrier Group.
You’re making that ballistic missile shit up! Tell me your making that up. Fucks sake!
nope. Talk to the tin-canners out there – they are pure conniption-fit about the proposed creation of manned towable targets.
manned towable targets
Beaut, mate.
The CG-X (what you called the BMD) program was cancelled in 2010.. the new plan is to refurbish the Arleigh Burke class instead.
The LCS (what you called the new FFG) is the replacement for the Oliver Hazard Perry class, which has been scheduled for decommissioning for a while.. the Perry has been around since the 70′s.
But the Chinese have a carrier now!!1!
Coincidentally, right after Farley blogged about how it, I saw they have already included it in a stupid video montage for the National Day which just passed on Oct 1st. No time wasted getting use out of that thing!
The Corner is a den of hilarity at the moment.
Jonah’s taking pills and heading to bed, and everybody else can’t believe how RUDE Joe Biden was. Sadly, the head lunatic, Michael Walsh, hasn’t weighed in yet.
Can Walsh weigh in as heavily as Jonah?
Metaphorically yes; physically probably not. I’ve never seen a picture, but I imagine the paranoia keeps him thin.
Mostly I am relieved for Andrew Sullivan. This will probably add at least a year to his life.
so good, though he needs so bulk lotion to keep his hands from cracking- too much wringing.
I don’t actually wish ill on Sully, but I have no desire to prolong his public career, either, and it’s not as if he’ll ever run out of stupid shit to whine about.
Since Obama’s debate performance caused so many people to wet their pants (let’s prepare for President Romney!), will this calm some down, or will only possible man bites dog moments be focused upon?
Boston Globe’s headline “Ryan shows electorate he’s no pushover in VP debate”.
In an ideal universe, journalists would have spent the last couple of months informing voters about the parties’ and candidates’ likely actual policy actions, and would now be spending their time looking for other things to inform people about, but in THIS universe editors are demanding political stories and who wants to write stories about a not-very-close campaign (or, God, worse, actual public policy)?
I’m sure that’s out of a sense of fairness, in order to be symmetrical with last week’s headline “Obama holds his own in first debate,” right? Because I was beginning to wonder if Vice President Biden had learned that Paul Ryan was secretly his red-haired stepchild.
I mean, really. I know they tried to make Sarah Palin into the clear winner of the last VP debate, and Lord knows that Dubya not obviously soiling himself on stage was a knockout victory, but really. “No pushover”? Because he didn’t suddenly stop lying after the first twenty-six times his lies were shredded in front of his pasty, vacuous face? Because he didn’t collapse sobbing and immediately withdraw from the race after Joe Biden demonstrated that Paul Ryan couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map of Afghanistan? Or did the headline get composed on an iPhone, and autocorrected to “no pushover” from “no shame”?
Oh, well, back to everyone else in the mainstream media focusing exclusively on Biden’s rude demeanor. I suppose this is a bit of a backhanded reassurance about last week’s debate: Obama could have brilliantly refuted Romney’s lies repeatedly, and it would have meant fuck-all, because just look at how he tied his goddamn shoes.
No, I’m going to have to go with the Globe on this: Ryan was no pushover.
I mean, lookit, he pronounced Afghanistan correctly no less than five times, and actually remembered we had been in a war in Iraq.
He reminded me of the kid who studied for his final for about an hour, tossed the textbook down to play with his X box, then figured he could bullshit his way through the essay.
I’m terrible about judging these things. I though it was a tie, with Biden winning very slightly, up until Ryan’s superior closing.
Then again, I thought McCain won the first debate in 2008, so don’t ask me.
A beatdown, eh?
In so, so many ways. On foreign policy, he created the impression he wants to stay in Afghanistan forever while admitting he didn’t disagree with the timeline, which he also thinks “sends the wrong signal.” Huh to the what on that. Raddatz really drew him out on abortion, Syria, and Iran, where he looked extreme and dangerous. And he looked like the cynical politician on Medicare (Biden played the “which party do you trust?” card well) and on the stimulus (big “gotcha!” by Joe the B.). The only thing that went his way is that he took his beating well, keeping his composure and humor.
And let’s not forget that he told a story about a tragic car accident that Mitt Romney helped with the aftermath of¹.
To Joe Biden, who lost his first wife in one, and deftly turned the tables on Ryan.
¹ Said accident involving a parishoner in the good bishop’s church. Romney paid the college tuition of the guy’s son(s?). Which is really nice until you remember he had a religious obligation to assist the members of his flock. Also, Ryan raised the $30 million in charitable giving, deftly sidestepping that if he hadn’t tithed, Mitt would be excommunicated.