The Biden v. Ryan Debate Thread

I like how he kept pointing out that 97% of small businesses make LESS than 250k a year. GOP's only hope is to keep the debate on "Was he rude?" cos there was a lot of substance to Joe's debate and it's best for them that it gets ignored in favor of bidenlaughs.gif

Palin was much worse...I mean, there's no way to even evaluate her.

― clemenza, Thursday, October 11, 2012 9:25 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not to mention admiral stockdale

Watching this right now because I was busy earlier, Biden is handing Ryan's ass to him.

lol david brooks

Ryan hails from a different era, not the era of the 1950s diner, but the era of the workout gym. By Ryan’s time, the national media culture was pervasive. The tone was cool, not hot. The meritocracy had kicked in and ambitious young people had learned to adopt a low friction manner. Ryan emerges from this culture in the same way Barack Obama does.

This is a generation armed with self-awareness. In this generation, you roll your eyes at anyone who is quite so flamboyantly demonstrative as the vice president.

the meritocracy had kicked in

I didn't say his performance was worse. He looked worse. He looked worse because he took a bigger fall.

And he had more invested in it.

Or more people were invested in him.

the meritocracy had kicked in

― a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Friday, October 12, 2012 12:45 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha yeah uh brb just gonna check up on some stats here

Hair-reverse Ryan just needs a 1000-foot stare.

http://heat.iwarp.com/cgi-bin/i/Images/sizemore2.jpg

(Tom Sizemore pic from Heat not accepted.)

CNN poll of debate watchers has this close wtf

wonder if they polled anyone besides aged white southerners this time

- the group got some chuckles out of the fact that Biden and Van Hollen showed up on Monday wearing the same exact outfit – navy blue blazer/gold buttons, light blue shirt, no tie.

misread that as Van Halen first time round

"SPECIAL NOTE OF CAUTION #2: The sample of debate-watchers in this poll were 31% Democratic and 33% Republican. That indicates that the sample of debate watchers is about eight points more Republican than an average CNN poll of all Americans, so the respondents were more Republican than the general public."

http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/g-cvr-121012-debate-3a.grid-6x2.jpg

Can't say that I remember that moment--was there some kind of a staredown that I missed?

I keep seeing the same two polls over and over, the CNN (basically tied) and the CBS (Biden clear winner), plus a CNBC that seems quite bogus. In any event, Biden said all the things that Obama should have said last week--literally; it was like he had a checklist, and he got every last one of them in--and I think there's great satisfaction among Democrats. He set up Obama well, now it's up to Obama.

Speaking of "Looper," that picture totally makes it seem as if Biden could be future Ryan. No less nutty than J G-L/Bruce WIllis. What you see in the background is the space-time continuum dissolving the human race.

I'd never thought about that--perfect. Calling Z S...

http://0.tqn.com/d/movies/1/0/f/E/Z/looper-willis-levitt.jpg

Ha ha! Good call.

"We are leaving (Afghanistan) in 2014. Period."

As brazen as it gets from the Veep Creep

http://joe-biden.ytmnd.com/

classic

"mitt romney's a car guy."

A MAN'S MAN

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbrchgmEHR1qz581wo1_400.gif

hypnotic

lol ryan trying to say romney misspoke when he he said let detroit go bankrupt IN A NEWSPAPER EDITORIAL

That was so absurd.

it was a typo

I'm somewhat amazed Glenn Greenwald deigned to write about the debate. I've never linked to him before, but I think this is pretty accurate in terms of how hard it is to know what the independent/undecided/whatever reaction to Biden last night will be:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/12/vice-president-debate-reaction

wow, kinda shocked he wrote something like that

a C-SPAN caller:

http://pdfob.tumblr.com/post/33408636830/a-caller-on-c-span-after-the-vp-debate-classic

Dying at that.

greenwald finally corrupted by the washington media elite rip

lol ryan trying to say romney misspoke when he he said let detroit go bankrupt IN A NEWSPAPER EDITORIAL

he didn't just say it in a newspaper editorial...that was the title! was disappointed biden didn't jump on that.

not only is it hack political writing, but it's not even particularly good hack political writing!

For years, Paul Ryan has been the shining champion of some really terrible ideas, and of a dystopian vision of the political commonwealth in which the poor starve and the elderly die ghastly, impoverished deaths, while all the essential elements of a permanent American oligarchy were put in place. This has garnered him loving notices from a lot of people who should have known better. The ideas he could explain were bad enough, but the profound ignorance he displayed on Thursday night on a number of important questions, including when and where the United States might wind up going to war next, and his blithe dismissal of any demand that he be specific about where he and his running mate are planning to take the country generally, was so positively terrifying that it calls into question Romney's judgment for putting this unqualified greenhorn on the ticket at all. Joe Biden laughed at him? Of course, he did. The only other option was to hand him a participation ribbon and take him to Burger King for lunch.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-debate-joe-biden-13626962#ixzz2963FWxlO

some good burnin' in there

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/10/12/the-veep-debate-and-what-commentators-dont-understand-about-who-watched-it/

Here’s some breaking news: the kind of people who choose to watch a vice-presidential debate instead of baseball or football or a cooking show are not sensitive souls who curl up into a ball at the first sign of disagreement between politicians. People who choose to watch political conflict can deal with it. Those who can’t—or just aren’t interested in the first place—are watching something else. Research by political scientists Kevin Arceneaux and Martin Johnson shows this.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbrafefpqw1qbiko3o1_250.png

weirdly my students were kind of psyched to watch this.

lol

I knew Biden won when all Hannity and McConnell could say about the debate was how mean he had been to Eddie Munster

Kevin Arceneaux and Martin Johnson--oh, they're good (to quote John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever).

A second Greenwald post, about Raddatz's typical MSM-journalist assumptions (Soc Sec & Medicare are going broke). I though thes closing grafs were interesting too:

One more note about Raddatz: near the end of the debate, she asked the two Catholic candidates how their religion influences their views on abortion. This was a reasonable question unto itself, but also reflects standard DC assumptions on these issues.

It is often noted that the Catholic Church stridently opposes reproductive rights. But it is almost never noted that the Church just as stridently opposes US militarism and its economic policies that continuously promote corporate cronyism over the poor. Too much emphasis on that latter fact might imperil the bipartisan commitment to those policies, and so discussion of religious belief is typically confined to the safer arena of social issues. That the Church has for decades denounced the US government's military aggression and its subservience to the wealthiest is almost always excluded from establishment journalistic circles, even as its steadfast opposition to abortion and gay rights is endlessly touted.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/12/raddatz-debate-objectivity

Martha Raddatz's ABC segments are often unwatchable: she so identifies with the military industrial establishment.

if the catholic church wanted to promote its steadfast opposition to military aggression above its views on birth control, it wouldn't need a media mandate

I'm not sure; Obama/Biden's steadfast opposition to Big Bird's death is more media-friendly than their presumed (but nearly silent) opposition to climate catastrophe.

if obama/biden wanted to promote its steadfast opposite to climate catastrophe, it wouldn't need a media mandate

maybe ppl just like sex police more than assistance vs those who will starve or drown them.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/the-vice-presidential-debate-joe-biden-was-right-to-laugh-20121012

Fun with details and some corny jokes