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As I said yesterday, I did watch the debate. I felt Palin did a fairly good job of remaining coherent: she actually spoke in fairly well-constructed English sentences, rather than projectile vomiting fragments of anything crossing her mind that had any chance of being related to the topic at hand. I should back up for a moment and clarify that, after watching excerpts of her interview with Katie Couric, I told a number of coffee drinkers that Palin reminded me of nothing so much as a student who skipped class all term long, spent 48 hours prior to the final cramming, OD'ing on caffeine, and not sleeping. Then upon showing up for a blue book exam, spent two hours projectile vomiting onto the pages, gagging up every key word vaguely remembered from all the cramming. No effort for coherence- that simply didn't exist. No effort toward actually answering questions, or demonstrating understanding. Just spitting out words and phrases that might, just might, have any relevance whatsoever. It is very obvious when a student has done this, and it was obvious when Palin did it.
So at any rate, I was hoping she didn't pull that kind of performance again; no one deserves that kind of humiliation in front of a live audience and a television viewership of millions. I thought her answers were pat, emphasizing the hockey mom/Joe six-pack mentality, and predictable talking points, over substance of any kind. I thought Biden's responses were indicative of much more comprehension and background. But I'm biased- I'll freely admit that. And since I really resent the talking heads telling me what I think about news, I turned off the tube immediately after the closing remarks.
So I was surprised and more than a little pleased earlier today, when I jumped into the webscape, to find that most polls and news sources agreed with my assessment: Palin gave a respectable performance, but Biden clearly had more meat.
So when is the next debate between McCain and Obama? I should watch at least one of them.
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3 comments:
Town Hall Debate, Tues. 7-Oct, from Belmont University (Nashville, TN)> I'm making up the McCain Bingo cards, as we speak... Just wished I'd known about the Palinbingo, on Thursday.
go back and watch parts --- especially about the VP role and a few other places
it wasnt as coherent as you think it was
this performance from Sarah does require multiple viewings to understand her nuanced skills in making something from nothing
Anonymous- thanks, I should watch it.
Dcap- Yeah... I was trying to be a little bit kind. No doubt there were a few answers that were, shall we say, not very diagrammable. But watching (as opposed to reading transcripts, which is the way I most often follow these things), I thought her intent was most often fairly clear. The VP answer, for example, was clear. Scary as hell, yes. If read as text, garbled, check. But clear as seen on the tube. I need to go back through some transcripts, because I don't remember the particular answer, but there was one point I sort of mentally gasped and thought, WTF is she talking about. But that was the general gist of the whole Couric interview, and I really didn't want to see that again. BTW, loved this line from Gail Collins NYT column today: "The Republicans were euphoric over Sarah Palin’s debate performance, particularly the part in which she stood tall and refrained from falling off the stage."
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