joe biden

joe biden. past is prologue. mccain is bush.

i watched the v.p. debate this eve and was put off by palin because she was all technique.

as for biden, he is enjoying a season of favor in my book. i used to have just vague ideas regarding joe biden. smart guy. had that tragedy when he was just starting out. tends to say things one cannot say in politics in our age, what with the advent of the sound bite.

palin was polished as it relates to presenting on tv. she tried to smile more often than not. she made a lot of eye contact with the camera. her answers were more like practiced speeches than actual answers however. i have a bad feeling this tactic is basically successful for the mccain-palin team.

they scheduled the bare minimum number of debates they could get away with, (the one,) and they really were just hoping for a tie, essentially. i am sure their goal was to have palin speak to the republican base, specifically the fundamentalist christian segment, and keep them happy. she fulfilled that mission in her prepared statements, when she was not answering questions.

when palin winked, (one of several times,) directly into the camera with a nearly flirty smile that passed for down home americana-alaska, i suppose, it seemed like all practiced technique with no sign of substance. she also tried to downplay biden's assertion that mccain-palin represented more of the same, a la bush-cheney, by suggesting that he should not look backwards.

this was not a defense at all. in the video above biden makes it very clear that mccain-palin has offered almost nothing substantive that differs from the bush administration. mccain could have created distance from bush by making plans that showed a will to go in different directions but mccain would not do that because he is not very different from george w bush.

they both want to deregulate everything and carry forward the same republican agenda that was ushered in with the reagan era and has brought us to this place we exist in today.

when i was a kid we were number one in everything, (or so it seemed.) we had the best education system in the world and americans were well educated by and large. we had the best health care. we were prosperous. we were strong. we were kind and beloved in the world. i was a kid in the '70s, so perhaps with vietnam i was somewhat deceived, but it sure seemed like the good will gained from defeating hitler and the japanese army, was still palpable in the world.

today, the entire world and about 48% of americans see us as a self-serving bully on the world stage who is in serious economic decline.

connecting mccain to bush is a winning strategy, joe biden was a gentleman. he was clearly in charge of the facts on virtually every subject he addressed. he also had a very human moment when he conjured some emotion while talking about how he felt in his son's hospital room. it came as an abrupt stop for a second, after which biden regained his composure and picked up right where he left off.

yeah, i really like this guy right now. despite how much i wanted it to be hillary all the way up to the day obama announced joe biden as his running mate, i am especially pleased now that joe biden is on the ticket.

thanks to tpm for the two youtube clips.