The Debate: Biden Exudes Charm & Class, but Palin Connects to Americans

The Chicago Tribune rolled out its underwhelming 'damn with faint praise' edition of the Post VP Debate spin.

Steve Chapman's charge of 'Small Town Snobbery' that he lamely leveled against Sahara Palin still banners up for the Salon set. Using some dweebish sociology paper, Chapman explains that crime is down in small town America because the towns are small:

This deters crime in two ways. First, you don't want to damage your reputation among people who may ostracize you for doing wrong. Second, you don't want to rob someone who can easily identify you to police—and in a small town, that limits your pool of victims. Crime is more common in cities because they offer a target-rich environment and much less chance of being spotted by someone who can tell the cops your name, address and 3rd-grade teacher.
One of these days, the 80 percent of Americans who live in more populated areas may tire of being obliquely insulted. Most urbanites and suburbanites don't think they're any better than their country cousins. But Palin might want to think twice before telling them they're worse.

Homicide, Assault, Robery in Englewood, Chatham, Gresham, Roseland where the body count goes up higher than Franklin Raines' Fannie Mae buyout loot?

Steve, you really need to get out a bit. Violent Crimes in those neighborhoods do not occur because of the economic rich pickings, Steve and all too often the neighbors and relatives witness the actual crime and 'NO SNITCH!'

Anyway, Joe Biden is a compelling, forceful, witty, and delightful man and Sarah Palin faced one of the most skilled debaters in the U.S. Senate. Gov. Palin held her own and gave back as good as she got.

What is important is this - Sarah Palin spoke to America.

Joe Biden won the debate, but Sarah Palin won the hearts and minds - if not the ears of folks all over America - I expect more disertations on Palins mispronunciation of the 'N word' - NUCLEAR. I believe that her pronunciation was part of the tactical plan to connect with Americans - irregardless of Party Affiliation. That was the mission. Check!

Steve Chapman's is to help paint the Yellow Brick Road that Obama is skipping on - for now.

Sarah Palin - Change is Coming! Joe Biden will Limp Off Stage!

Tell the morons - Those Heights just past the water? That's Russia as seen from Alaska.

Sarah Palin has had to endure the contemptuous idiocies of likes Of Couric, Olbermann, Maddow, Maher, Matthews, Letterman, Fey and their Progressive print stooges and commenting lemmings in the blogosphere.

Wednesday night, the leash comes off the 'pitbull with lipstick.' Thursday Night - Hold the Phone, Joe!

Joe Biden, who massages his toncils with his Florsheims on a daily basis, will meet Sarah Palin for the first time and limp off the stage.

There will be no 'gottcha moments' orchestrated by sneaks like Couric who play on the good manners of Americans in order to serve up a victim. Couric and CBS have been a National Joke since the days of Gunga Dan Rather.

Sarah Palin was vetted by the McCain Campaign and the Media hate the fact that a genuine person in now poised to be a 'heart-beat away' from another genuine person.

Townhall's Bill Dwyer makes a nice bit of perspective.

I'm not saying that these photos and maps, by themselves, are any proof that Sarah Palin is ready to be a heartbeat from the presidency. I am saying that these photos and maps, by themselves, are indeed proof that she and others were telling the literal truth when they described Russia as sharing a border with, and being visible from, Alaska.


As for Gov. Palin's foreign affairs and national defense qualifications, however:

No job fully prepares anyone for the foreign policy and national defense responsibilities that attend the office of POTUS because no job shares more than a fraction of those responsibilities — including jobs like "Secretary of State" or "Secretary of Defense" or "U.S. Senator."

No new occupant of the office of POTUS has to undertake those responsibilities alone. Each is surrounded by advisers, including career professionals from the State and Defense Departments. In particular, any vice presidents who is suddenly elevated to the presidency is surrounded by advisers originally selected by their immediate predecessor, which would mean in the case of a hypothetical ascension by Sarah Palin to the presidency, advisers chosen by John McCain. As a former naval aviator and, then, commander of the Navy's largest air wing, and as a long-time senator with oversight responsibilities, active participation on the Senate Foreign Affairs committee, and — extraordinarily even for Senators — direct involvement in international negotiations (as when he led the United States' efforts to negotiate the resumption of diplomatic relations with the same regime that once tortured him as a POW) — John McCain's own foreign affairs and national defense credentials are among the most impressive held by anyone ever to run for president. He will put a sound system into place that would benefit a sudden successor, and he would also be a superb tutor of a co-executive in his administration whose own credentials on foreign affairs and national security are less deep than his own.

Although border state governors have more interaction with foreign affairs and border security matters than other governors, in our federal system that commits overall commander-in-chief responsibility and foreign affairs (head of state) primacy to the federal Executive, no state governor has executive experience on these matters comparable to that which must be exercised by the POTUS. State governors are, however, executives, with experience running large organizations of a sort that mere legislators at any level — including U.S. Congressmen and Senators — don't acquire. That's part of the explanation for why America has so often elected state chief executive officers (governors) to become the federal chief executive officer (POTUS), often with salutary results (see, e.g., Ronald Reagan's victory in the Cold War).

Even with the limited role that our system apportions to state governors as commanders-in-chief of their state national guards and the state executives ultimately responsible for law enforcement within their jurisdictions, those governors still have and wield executive authority that includes putting guard members' and law enforcement officers' lives on the line — in enforcement of criminal law, in handling civil disorders and riots, and in emergencies like forest fires and floods. They send them into harms' way; they direct their activities while there; and sometimes, they have go to the funerals and hand flags to grieving relatives. And among all state governors, the governor of Alaska — as the state leader with closest continual proximity to a hostile foreign state — does indeed have responsibilities and obtain defense briefings beyond those received by, for example, the governor of Arkansas (which need not fear hostile bomber overflights from Missouri). No one can seriously argue that this compares to actually being the POTUS. But it's not nothing, either. And of executive experience in general, or experience personally making decisions that have put anyone's lives on the line in particular, "nothing" is the exactly appropriate description for both Sens. Obama and Biden, because neither member of the Democratic Party's ticket can match Gov. Palin's experience of that sort (or any other state governor's, for that matter).

Obviously, Gov. Palin was selected not to augment McCain's own strengths, but to balance the ticket: A governor to complement a senator, someone with executive experience in government to complement an experienced federal legislator, youth and energy to complement age and experience. (The conspicuous exception is that they both share strong credentials as vigorous reformers.)

Sen. McCain did a great deal at last night's debate to dispel doubts about his age and mental crispness, and those who vote for him may do so with the full and reasonable expectation that he'll ably serve out at least one term. Gov. Palin's own record of accomplishments in office, along with her electoral appeal and the prospect that she will join him as a crusading reformer in Washington, amply justify her selection, and her gubernatorial experience will match that of another young and dynamic GOP vice presidential nominee upon assuming office — one T.R. Roosevelt of New York. And when he suddenly ascended to the top job, he only did well enough to get his face on Mt. Rushmore.

John McCain: It's Biden! Obama Goes for A Man 'Greater Than Himself'

Taking a page from the John McCain playbook - and it is about time, Senator - Barack Obama has looked to the needs of someone other than himself - His tanking Campaign - over his own personal ambition and has chosen Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. I thought with all of the subterfuge and gadding about with the press these last few days, that Obama might select under-the-radar Sen. Jack Reed, but Obama head faked me - not too difficult. It has been All About Obama, but does not seem to be selling too hot these days. Obama needs an honest street brawler.

Senator Joe Biden is a great selection. Biden brings a wealth of seriousness to a Campaign identified by MTV-level thinking and life-style. Joe Biden knows how to bowl - out of the gutter. Well, sort of anyway.

My only beef with Biden stems from his willingness to carry the water of the National Organization of Women and the ACLU in their strident and un-American personal Borking ( a neologism coined in that time) of a Centrist legal scholar out of pure political necessity. Biden is still willing to play ball with the forces that fundamentally oppose all of his own strong virtues: Patriotism, Faith, Dignity, and Courage. The ACLU is group think. Joe Biden is better than that.

In The Bork Hearings, Joe Biden, who chaired Senate Judiciary hearings, came at Bork hard. It was an ugly chapter in American history.

Senator Ted Kennedy summarized the personal assault on Robert Bork:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is -- and is often the only -- protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy... President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of American. No justice would be better than this injustice."

Doing the bidding of ACLU and the elites did Joe Biden no good. He himself was 'Borked' out contention for the Democratic Nomination. The Group think seemed to mistrust Biden's individualism.

Now, Joe Biden is needed to bring Catholics, blue-collar white voters and women back into belief that the forces of Group Think are not all that bad.

Unlike most Progressives, Joseph Biden is a street fighter, while they tend to be litigation terrorists and character assassins. Biden fights hard and comes at his opponent from the front. He does not give the enemy a head butt after a disarming smile. Say this for Biden - He told Robert Bork to expect an ass-chewing and the jurist was not ambushed:
LEAD: Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a Democratic Presidential contender, assured opponents of the nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork today that he would lead the fight against his confirmation to the United States Supreme Court.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a Democratic Presidential contender, assured opponents of the nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork today that he would lead the fight against his confirmation to the United States Supreme Court.

The remarks were made at a private meeting this morning called by Mr. Biden to convey his position to leaders of civil rights groups, who are marshaling for an all-out battle to defeat the nomination.

Pete Smith, a spokesman for the Judiciary Committee, confirmed that Senator Biden ''intends to oppose the nomination and to lead the effort against it in the Senate.'' But the spokesman said the Delaware Senator ''does not plan to formally announce his opposition until he has a chance to spell out his reasons in detail in a series of speeches, which he plans to begin next week.'' Hearings Set for Sept. 15

The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over judicial nominations, and today Mr. Biden announced that hearings on the nomination would not begin until Sept. 15, almost assuring that the Court will have a vacancy when the next term begins on Oct. 5.

When told of the decision not to begin hearings until September, Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman, said, ''We hope they will reconsider, because we would sure like to start the new term with a full Court.''

Mr. Biden's assurances that he will oppose the nomination represented an important shift by the powerful liberal Democrat that could add to pressures on uncommitted Senators, Presidential candidates and other prominent Democrats to take early positions on the Bork nomination. In the past, Mr. Biden has sought to avoid a politically and ideologically partisan approach to judicial nominations.

Some liberal and civil rights groups say that stopping Judge Bork's nomination will be their major priority of the Reagan era.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE0DA1331F93AA35754C0A961948260


John McCain will have his hands full with Joe Biden, because unlike Senator Obama, Biden attacks from the front. The old fighter pilot's 'Neck on a Swivel' stance needs to be adjusted, because Joe Biden comes at you head-on.