Palin Has a Very Good Memory

One thing we saw tonight in the Biden-Palin debate is that people really can’t reinvent themselves. Joe Biden is an excellent debater, and there is no doubt in my mind that he had a very good night. Sarah Palin, who has had an absolutely terrible week in one-on-one interviews, took her try at the podium, and although she performed extremely well in not repeating her disastrous interviews, showed that she is an impressive receptacle of memorized information.

But her downfall was that she was so determined to spew out her prepared information, that she was actually determined to do it no matter what the question was. She even went so far as to declare that she would not answer the way that Joe Biden wished her to nor would she answer the questions necessarily of the moderator, and during the debate, she definitely went on to prove that point. Many times, Ms. Palin actually ignored the question put to her or made an effort to return to previously prepared points, even at one time moving to a topic that had not been brought up yet by the moderator.

I was wildly proud of Joe Biden. I liked him during the primaries, and I feel so strongly that Barack selected the correct person as his running mate. He looked like a college professor debating with a student who won the right to debate in the class lottery. Sarah Palin is way out of her league, but I will give her credit in one area. She seems to have an ability to retain a tremendous amount of information, but she also does not exactly score big on the credibility factor because she doesn’t appear to fully grasp the gravity of the very words that she is reciting.

I particularly loved Biden’s rebuttal of Palin’s description of John McCain as the maverick of the Senate, and I was also quite offended with the lack of respect displayed by Palin, particularly when she looked at Senator Biden and accused him and Senator Obama of waving the white flag when it comes to Iraq.

She is folksy. I will give her that, but her informal style begins to wear very thin when it is not backed up with facts. Governor Palin was woefully short on facts. She was also quite short on details, and although I’m very certain that she excited her base, it does appear that besides showing that she can hold her own on a stage performing in debate style, she didn’t do much to move the needle on the register of the rest of the electorate.

The good thing is that unlike the first presidential debate, I was able to sit quietly and not pace the floor with tremendous frustration. As a matter of fact, this debate, if we can actually call it that, was really very entertaining. If anything, it was probably disappointing to many people, because like a good NASCAR race, the majority of people tuned in so they wouldn’t miss a good and messy crash. On that score, Sarah Palin succeeded, but in overall debate style, dependence on actual facts and pointing out the misinformation from his opponent, Joe Biden won big. He clearly emerged as the winner of this debate.